What's the matter with kids today?

We hung around street corners.

We didn’t congregate in the middle of the street. It was always on corners and you know why, don’t you? Because mothers used to shout: “don’t hang round on my street, go and hang round on your own street!”

Being on a corner meant we could dispute which street we were actually hanging around on.

I always was argumentative.

We didn’t cause any real bother did we? Some kids smoked. I know I did.

We kissed girls. They didn’t always kiss us back but in the grand scheme of things did it really matter?

Some kids smoked pot (allegedly), but I didn’t need to I was potty enough without it.

Let’s face it we were no angels, but I think we had a little more respect than kids have today.

We feared the police and the courts.

We thought anyone in a suit was a somebody. Everyone feared the rent man calling.

I feared my mother more than anyone.

She could deliver one hell of a blow with the yard brush if a bobby took me home. I say ‘if’, I mean to say ‘when’.

Fred is one of my police heroes. He didn’t want to see me with a police record. He was more interested in Beatles’ records and he simply delivered me to my mother and she made sure I paid for my misdemeanours by making him a brew.

It seems to me from others I speak to and what we see in the press and on TV that the impression we give to the rest of the world is that ENG-land is now YOB-land.

And what is astonishing to me is that when you say anything about it, some clever mouth utters the stock answer, ‘all kids are the same’.

They imply that all kids are thugs and it’s now the norm.

Surely they can’t be but if it’s true then God help us.

These are the ones who will be running things in the future. They will be the new press barons. I can see the front page now, in code so we oldies can’t understand.

Kids today have their own language. It is all text and Internet speak.

It’s all numbers and letters. It 8nt easy 2 understand!

For example, 9 means Parents watching. If it’s 99 it means Parents not watching. Watching what, you might ask.

Dialling 999 takes on a very different perspective.

They won’t need newspapers. Whatever is going on in the world will be on their phones or whatever gadgets they have.

They will be the caterers of tomorrow. Life will be all burgers and fries.

I imagine scientists of the future will try to grow burgers in laboratories because kids today don’t seem to want to go out to work.

Potato picking is not in their world if indeed they know what potatoes are.

They certainly won’t fancy mucking out cattle, that’s for sure. Do they even know beefburgers come from cows?

There will be no police force because kids don’t like the police and wouldn’t want to join and lose their mates and ‘street cred’.

I suspect foreigners will enrol. Then we’ll see some fun and games.

Who will teach? Kids are anti-school. There will only be limited subjects to learn.

How to avoid manual labour and how to claim benefits will become degree ‘must haves’.

It’s a pretty bleak picture when you think of it.

The biggest issue I see is who is going to run the country and how?

Most of the modern economies are massively in debt so we might assume that it will continue.

Kids today are brought up to expect everything now and pay later.

They won’t worry.

Our country will be worth about as much as a first division football team soon.

I do believe that, had Hitler invested well instead of buying tanks, he could probably pick us up for a song now on the open market.

‘Congratulations and jubilations we want the world to know you bought us on the cheap’.

Stick that in your record collection, Sir Cliff! It wouldn’t bother me had we changed hands in a civilised way.

I like Germans with the obvious exception. I enjoy the cleanliness of the country, the efficient transport system and the general high standards the country aspires to.

I enjoy the Sauerkraut when I can and Ms Nomates is partial to a good sausage.

I digress.

So, If we are to believe that ‘all kids are the same’ and if it is the case that all kids are bad, we may as well throw the towel in.

Logic tells us that thugs, who will allow it to fall in to anarchy, will soon run our country.

They will drive up obesity, ignore the needs for good education, and have an inefficient, demoralised police force.

National debt will be the only fabric that binds us to Europe and America.

Kids today have no time for pensioners.

If we are to believe what we read, kids beat up pensioners for a few quid. It’s just not cricket.

Certainly anyone who could maltreat old biddies is hardly likely to even think of ensuring we will get good care when in bad health.

The old and infirm will be abused because they are an inconvenience. Pensioners will have their purses emptied and savings stolen by unscrupulous thugs.

Kids live for today so pensions will not be high on their agenda.

Come to think of it, that’s exactly how it is run today.

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