A recent government report suggests that despite all the money that's been thrown at the problem, truancy is still a major problem.

It's not the truancy as such though that's the problem; it's what the kids are doing while they're not at school: hanging around in gangs on street corners and shopping centres and getting drunk or taking drugs whilst threatening people and committing acts of vandalism.

My solution to this problem is simple; don't make education compulsory any more - bring in a curfew for children during school hours and basically place them all under house arrest. If people want to opt out of society, I say let them, but let them also suffer the consequences. There'll then be more resources and opportunities for the rest of us who want to contribute to, and participate in, the society in which we live.

AUTOCUE

Here are today's news headlines:
'The Prime Minister said something,
The Leader of the Opposition responded:
Somewhere abroad, a thousand people
Had their tongues ripped out.'

My dad's seventy years old today. It's no use me wishing him a happy birthday in this blog because he'll never read it. With his opinions, behaviour and attitudes he's barely arrived at the nineteenth century, never mind the twenty first, and so modern technology just doesn't feature in his life at all.

It's not that we don't get on; in fact we get on okay (always have). We're not very close though and can't talk about anything of a personal nature. The conversation never goes much beyond sport and the weather.

EPILOGUE

On the train
Tired children hugged windows
Tetes-a-tetes
Looking like empty vases
Argued over the pronunciation
Of the town.

On the platform
Lovers bartered their final embraces
As the station announcer
Announced that Saturday night
Would be late again this week.