Will somebody help Dougie the Dog grow up?

MRS BEELZEBUB cannot sing. And she knows she cannot sing.

That didn’t stop her punching me in the ribs when I reminded her of this affliction at a recent funeral, but no matter. The point is that she would rather give up shoe shopping before she would ever enter herself for a TV “talent” show like the X Factor. And Hell would promptly freeze over.

(I know Peter Mandelson is reckoned to be … ahem … a bit light on his feet, but if these botched trade quotas start hitting supplies of imported footwear, he better start running, fast.)

So what makes 75,000 supposedly rational people apply for auditions for this programme? Especially when it’s patently obvious that for 74,990 of them, it’s going to be a complete and utter waste of time?

Why would you rise at the crack of dawn, slap on the make up and the Sunday suit, queue all day in some soulless hotel lobby, only to be cut off before you’ve got four bars into I Will Survive and then be gratuitously insulted by some middle-aged poseurs for the delectation on the watching millions? Why?

The answer lies in the no blame/all fame culture that infests our society. Just as no-one is allowed to fail a single exam (to the point that even six-fingered kids from Bolton are collecting half a dozen A grades), just as no-one is allowed to miss out on university (even though they’d be far better academically suited as rat catchers or newspaper accountants), just as no-one wants to do a proper job anymore unless it involves immediate tabloid adulation and a million quid for nowt (and that takes in Page 3 models, Big Brother contestants and most footballers), everyone now thinks that they have an inalienable right to be famous.

It matters not that they have no discernable talent. It matters not that they can’t kick a ball or sing a note. Somewhere in their distorted psyche (for which we are all responsible) is the belief that all that stands between them and a glittering television career is a funny looking bloke with trousers up to his armpits.

So up they step for public humiliation and, having never before experienced the concept of “failure”, don’t they react badly when they actually “fail”? I’ve never seen such a bunch of spineless tossers, dissolving into a tissue at the very thought that they might not be pitch perfect, even when it’s patently obvious that they produce the kind of blood-chilling noise you’d expect to hear coming from Elton John’s honeymoon suite.

One such no-mark, a plump single mum, had brought her feral family to support her (they’d probably never seen carpet before) but to no avail. Dressed up in her finest New Look and with an extra coat of polish on her tattoos, she was so appallingly bad that even the potato-headed Louis Walsh couldn’t find a redeeming feature.

When she was informed of this fact and ushered out of the audition, there then developed a shouting match featuring the council-faced grandmother of the brood.

“You’ve ruined my daughter’s life,” screamed the raddled old harridan.

No, love, you have. By producing an offspring so bereft of ambition or imagination that a two-minute slot on trash TV is all that she has to aspire to, you’ve created that weeping, self-obsessed monster in the blue polyester boob tube and the fetching spangly thong. Think on.

NOT CONTENT with sending their licensed muggers out to harass us on the streets, our national charities have now discovered just how cheap advertising on satellite television is. (A fiver a slot seems to be the going rate.)

Hence, we are bombarded with constant appeals for money to help sick kids, thick kids, old people and animals. I’ve been watching one such advert, for the PDSA, for over a month now.

Send money, it implores, to “give Poppet the cat the treatment she needs” or to “give Dougie the dog the chance to grow up.” Well excuse me, but what caring charity keeps sick animals hanging around a television studio day after day just to tug at the heartstrings (and purse-strings) of old women who smell of wee?

Any decent organization would have taken them to the vets for treatment weeks ago.

SUCH WAS the fierce competition in the inaugural Scrote of the Year contest, where dissolute families battle to claim the most in benefits by virtue of having children like shelling peas, that I had to close it down after three months in fear of bankruptcy.

The number of prizes required (hampers of microwave pizzas, Findus Crispy Pancakes, packets of Lambert and Butler King Size and Turkey Twizzler-flavoured Pot Noodles) were spiralling out of control as it became apparent that half the country appeared to be on board this particular gravy train.

But we can still cast an eye over those making a notable challenge when it comes to robbing the taxpayer blind, and there’s an interesting and lucrative sideline I’ve noticed as well.

Enter stage left the Ramond family of Newcastle upon Tyne. By scrote standards they have a relatively modest nine children and pull in less than £40,000 a year in benefits and handouts. (The fact that the ordinary working man would have to earn a salary of over £65,000 to achieve this income is neither here nor there.)

Despite this Nanny State largesse, it appears that the Ramonds can’t even pay the pitiful rent of £12.50 a week on their housing association home and, because they’re already blacklisted by the council for defaulting on rent arrears at their last home, fear being turned out onto the streets. It won’t happen of course. The legions of leather-elbowed, lentil-eating Lefties will make sure it doesn’t.

The father of the family - Ray Ramond, aged 39 – claims he cannot work because of depression. You might be depressed too with nine children milling around your feet. The mother, 36-year-old Tracey, (and here comes the rub) is paid £123 a week as a full-time carer for daughter Stacey, 12, who suffers from something called Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

There are two factors to consider here. Firstly, does ADHD even exist, and if it does why did we never hear of it until 10 years ago? Isn’t it just being naughty or a bit thick? Secondly, have you noticed how every scrote household manages to have at least one “sick” child, thereby attracting the additional bunce of the carer’s allowance? (Many of these revenue-earning kids have “asthma”, usually not unrelated to their parents prodigious consumption of cigarettes.)

The Ramonds appear to have hedged their bets in this area. As well as “special” Stacey, Nicky (10) also has ADHD, Tia (three) is partially blind and Leigh (four) has only one kidney. (Despite the temptation, I’m not going to start talking about genetics here.) The other Ramond children, for your delectation, are called Susan, Courtney, Cherlynne, Chantelle and, inevitably, Chardonnay.

Now you may call me hard and uncaring. You can call me a heartless middle-class snob. You may view the Ramonds as a close-knit family unit doing their best to prosper in the face of insurmountable odds.

On the other hand, you might just think they’re the biggest set of scroungers since the Big Issue mobilised beggars. You decide.

O The views of Mr Beelzebub are purely personal and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Editor or staff of this website, of anyone who hadn’t worked out by part two that it was the woman in the mortuary who killed all those people in Messiah 4, of anyone expecting The Guardian and the BBC to set up a relief fund for all those poor flooded Americans, or of anyone who can understand how an increase in the numbers of children drinking can possibly be linked to the new 24-hour licences that haven’t even started yet. I mean, how many 11-year-olds have you seen propping the bar up in your local while smoking a pipe and ordering a pint of mild?

The utter ineptitude of female bosses

POOR MICHAEL Buerk. Not only was he witness to the dreadful scenes of the Ethiopian famine, not only did he have to suffer the indignity of presenting those terrible 999 TV series, not only was he born with a mis-spelt surname, but now he’s only gone and upset loads of shrieking women.

His crime? To suggest that our society’s values had been skewed somewhat to over-represent the views and values of the fairer sex (I can hear then whine already) at the expense of our traditional male virtues. Instead of stoicism, reticence, courage, single-mindedness and rationality (let’s face it, the bedrock of Britishness) we are now urged to embrace touchy-feely, fluffy, non-aggressive multi-tasking, which seems to involve being nice to everyone and never making a difficult decision.

He also points out that the number of women in top positions at the BBC is forcing a non-representative female agenda upon us, and who can argue with that? Turn on daytime telly and all you’ve got is programmes about moving house, doing up said house, or selling crap you’ve bought at a French car boot sale at vastly inflated prices and then spending the money on your house.

It’s a joke. If it wasn’t for Thunderbirds and the occasional Norman Wisdom film, I’d have to get out of bed before opening time.

And it’s not just television where this malign influence is evident. In politics we’ve ended up with open borders because we’re too scared to turn hook-handed terrorists away, our education system is a joke because no-one is now allowed to fail, and the Nanny State is now banning inflatable paddling pools from people’s back gardens unless they employ a lifeguard. It’s madness.

Anyone who has ever worked for a female boss knows what a disaster it can be. When men step up to the plate, they do it with authority and confidence. When women plant their backsides in the boss’s chair (after first worrying about whether or not it will fit), they’re often so wracked by anxiety, lack of confidence, fear of failure and the need to be liked that they’re rendered utterly ineffective.

I tell you, if I had a tenner for every lady boss I’ve seen in tears in the toilet (and not just at the Christmas party) I’d be writing this from the deck of my yacht.

The only good thing is that they won’t be there for long, most of them seeing a senior management position as licence to bugger off and have litters of children at the company’s expense. For year after year after year.

I make one final point in support of Mr Buerk, and his thesis that men are undervalued and unnecessarily ridiculed. This week the BBC launched a new TV series called Bring Your Husband To Heel, in which women were shown how to modify their husbands behaviour by using “dog training techniques”.

Consider this. How long do you think a series called Bringing Your Wife To Heel would last? Discussion over.

I’VE WRITTEN before about the horrendous persecution of the Hall family, breeders of guinea pigs for scientific use, so I won’t bore you again with my views on how these urban terrorists and their NuLabour apologists have reduced democracy to a joke.

I would just ask you this: When it comes to the validity of using laboratory-bred animals for the testing of life-saving drugs, who would you rather believe? Over a hundred British scientists, including three Nobel prize winners, or a gang of violent, deranged, lentil-eating thugs, who think that digging up an elderly woman’s body is a valid tactic in their supposedly peaceful campaign? You decide.

SO, THIS Piano Man geezer who’s suddenly made a miraculous recovery. What’s that all about then?

First of all he turns up on the seafront at Sheerness, soaking wet and with all the labels cut out of his suit (must have been Matalan). Then he sponges four months of expensive psychiatric care with three square meals a day and a free piano to play with

The next thing you know he’s confessed to being a gay Kraut con man and buggered off back to Bavaria without even a backward glance. It’s just not on.

I have a cunning plan. I’m going to turn up on Blackpool Prom looking a bit damp and bedraggled and, when hauled in by the dibble, I’ll draw them a picture of Pamela Anderson and a pint of Boddingtons. Roll on four months of fun and games at the State’s expense.

IT’S BEEN a weekend of wailing parents, distraught that their offspring can’t get a university place despite having four A-grade A-levels.

Well of course they can’t, dimwits, because everyone’s got four A-grade A-levels. How are universities supposed to differentiate between the smart and the not-so-smart when everyone’s exam results are identical? No wonder there are now 60,000 kids out there having to face the realities of life instead of looking forward to three years of binge drinking alcopops and buying 10 Silk Cut from the all-night garage and then paying by cheque.

There is a solution to this of course, and one so simple that even the robotic Ruth Kelly should be able to get her alien-shaped head around it.

First, establish how many university places there actually are - this year it’s around 330,000. Secondly, make the A-level exams a bit harder and include compulsory English and Maths sections. Thirdly, set the pass mark so that only the top 330,000 students get through. Finally, send those 330,000 to university, where they will neatly occupy the 330,000 vacancies.

Now that’s not exactly rocket science, is it?

WE RETURN to the Outer Hebridean islands of North Uist and Benbecula, where two years ago conservationists declared war on hedgehogs. Yes, hedgehogs.

Apparently the vicious beasts, introduced to the islands in 1974 to combat a slug problem, were threatening dwindling stocks of lapwings and ringed plovers by eating their eggs. Since then, Scottish Natural Heritage has spent around £200,000 a year on capturing and then killing the hedgehogs with a lethal injection during a month-long autumn cull.

They even pay islanders a £20 bounty for every hedgehog they hand over. And, predictably, a dissenting group of bunny-huggers has set up the Uist Hedgehog Rescue organization to smuggle hedgehogs off the islands and re-home them on the mainland before the killing begins. Think French Resistance meets Mrs Tiggywinkle.

But this is where it gets funny (or even funnier). This year the hedgehog killers were planning to use dogs to flush the evil, wee beasties out of their undergrowth lairs. But wait. Under Scottish anti fox-hunting legislation, if you flush a wild animal from hiding by using a dog, you then must shoot it with a shotgun. No last cuddle and lethal injection allowed.

As you can imagine, blasting a hedgehog with a 12-bore doesn’t leave behind much in the way of hedgehog. Certainly not enough for a decent burial and a swift chorus of All Things Bright And Beautiful. So Scottish National Heritage is now tying itself in philosophical knots having been hoist by its own legislation.

And you can’t blame some of us for sniggering behind our hands at that.

O The views of Mr Beelzebub are purely personal and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Editor or staff of this website, of anyone who isn’t saving up to buy their copy of Fire Engines Of The World Including A Free 1939 Bedford Only £2.99 (and a tenner a time for the other 97 parts), of anyone who isn’t sick to death of the Charlie/Shelley Coronation Street storyline, or of anyone not fervently wishing that Courtney Love and Alan Partridge decide to name their forthcoming child Fernando.

Attention bombers: Head for Barbados

WITH THE harvest in full swing and the fields bare, I have been spending most of my evenings shooting relocating foxes. And hares, rabbits, voles, mink released into the wild by animal rights loonies and the occasional stray dog.

This has left Mrs Beelzebub at a loose end and, with the shoe shops closing at 8pm and Big Brother over for another year, she has taken to sitting in the library with a bottle of Advocaat and a pile of Mills and Boon novels. This creates two problems. Firstly, it gives her ideas (nudge nudge, wink wink); secondly, she’s likely to spontaneously combust when she finds out that another of our national institutions is about to fall victim to the soulless modernisers.

Yes, my friends, publishers Mills and Boon have announced that in future their sloppy, slushy romantic paperback dross will be updated to reflect “modern life”. Out goes bodice-ripping and bare-chested bachelors and in come failed marriages, single mums and struggling divorcees. What utter tosh.

Surely these modern concerns are already catered for by the legions of “chick lit” books that litter airport shops? It sometimes seems that every failed 30-year-old career woman in the country has delivered an anguished tome about not being able to “have it all”. (It’s easy, ladies. Find a husband, have babies, stay at home and get the tea on the bloody table. Oh, and wear stockings after 8pm.)

While this unwanted and unnecessary updating will be about as welcome as John McCririck at a family funeral, I cannot help but ponder as to the tone of these modern romances. I’ve even had a go myself:

Sherilee shifted awkwardly on the bench outside the off licence. Her nylon thong was causing her grief. She watched as the insipid sunlight reflected on the can of Special Brew clutched in the sovereign ring-encrusted hand of the man of her dreams. Wayne was special, not like all the rest. Today was their third anniversary; a full three weeks since that night of passion in the alleyway behind the halal butchers.

The cigarette ash blew from the end of her Lambert & Butler and drifted into the pushchair where the twins, Primark and Makosi, were greedily pushing Chicken McNuggets into their mouths. The doctors were still at a loss as to how Sherilee had given birth to babies of different colours. That’s cider parties for you, she thought.

Wayne lifted a buttock, broke wind and passed the can of Special Brew to Sherilee. He was such a romantic, she thought. Now why don’t they ever write books about people like us …?

Yeah, I wonder why.

I’D BEEN wondering what to spend my Big Brother winnings on when I came across the intriguing story about wild animals being put up for sale on the internet.

According to the International Fund for Animal Welfare, you can now buy yourself a tiger or a few chimps just by logging on to e-bay. I am sorely tempted to snap up the adult male gorilla reputedly for sale in London.

It would be a laugh to release it in the Lower Meadow. And not tell my man Whittaker, who’s busy down there preparing his pack of hunting cats for the forthcoming season.

A MARRIED primary school teacher was jailed for 15 months this week after admitting an affair with a 14-year-old. Quite right too, I hear you say. Bang the dirty old pervert up. How dare he take advantage of a naïve youngster.

Except that the teacher in question is actually Mrs Hannah Grice, a 32-year-old mother of two. And her so-called victim is the teenage son of a family friend.

Can someone explain to me how justice has been served in this matter? Despite predictable cries from the mother of the “victim” that Mrs Grice has “stolen her son’s innocence”, what harm has really been done? Most 14-year-old boys think about sex every 20 seconds. Having the opportunity to fulfill some of those fantasies while enjoying the attentions of an older woman must be a dream come true, and will only stand the lad in good stead when he manages to find someone nearer his own age to play hide the sausage with.

Now this poor bloody woman has been taken away from her humiliated family and thrown into chokey at our expense. It’s madness.

And meanwhile thousands of pregnant 14-year-old girls swan around our council estates while the young adult males who impregnated them go ram-raiding with impunity. Once again the middle classes pay the price while the dole scum escape responsibility for their actions.

COULD ANY Al Qaeda operatives reading this please turn away now? I may be about to reveal a state secret.

A couple of months ago, before the London Tube bombings, one of Mr Blah’s henchmen contacted the editors of our national newspapers and asked them not to publish details of the Prime Minister’s forthcoming summer holiday for security reasons. An odd request, given that this family of freeloaders has shown no shame in publicly roaming the globe (usually at other people’s expense) in past summers.

For some reason the guardians of our free press acquiesced, although both the Daily Mail and The Sun have since published paparazzi pictures of Mr Blah and his Zippy-lookalike partner splashing around in the sea without identifying their whereabouts.

But why the subterfuge? Is the threat to the Prime Minister, who is comprehensively guarded, any greater than that which faces London commuters on a daily basis? And if the paparazzi can track him down, surely Al Qaeda could find him as well?

The whole thing is a nonsense. A cynic would even suggest that it’s just a smokescreen to disguise the fact that he’s off on another freebie courtesy of a wealthy supporter. Like staying at Sir Cliff Richard’s villa in Barbados once again. Know what I mean?

O The views of Mr Beelzebub are purely personal and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Editor or staff of this website, of anyone who hasn’t been busy baiting Australian bar staff over their cricketorial incompetence, of anyone daft enough to book a British Airways flight in August, or of anyone who can explain to me how Victoria Beckham managed to write her autobiography when she claims never to have read a book.

American jets bombed our Scout hut

I HAVE MANY claims to fame, only a few of which can be safely mentioned in a family newspaper.

I’ve eaten beans on toast with Wayne Fontana of the Mindbenders in a TV studio canteen, I’ve been visited in hospital by Sir Matt Busby when I had appendicitis at the age of 14, and I had lunch with John Major the day before he was due to lose the 1992 General Election by a country mile (and then cleaned up at the bookies after he showed me the private poll returns that had him as a clear winner).

But this I have never before confessed: I was in the Boy Scouts with Colonel Gaddafi.

Now don’t laugh. We didn’t exactly know at the time that we were dib-dib-dobbing with a future dictator. All we knew is that Brown Owl introduced a little Arab boy called Muammar one Tuesday night and asked us to look after him. Being good Boy Scouts (albeit the inner city variety) we embraced him to our collective bosom, picked his pocket of his weekly subs and sent him down to the off licence for five Park Drive and a pint of loose sherry. Funnily enough, he always had the best uniform.

Given that we were what could be described as a fundamentalist troop (the 1908 edition of Scouting For Boys was our bible) it is no surprise that little Muammar fitted right in. And a damn fine Scout he became, especially when it came to camping.

When most of the troop were huddling cold and damp under a ragged piece of canvas laughingly described as a “tent”, and pumping desperately at a mediaeval primus stove in a doomed attempt to fry perpetually-raw sausages, Muammar’s patrol luxuriated in a Bedouin-style marquee with fitted carpets, throw cushions, visiting belly dancers, an endless supply of mint tea and a kebab machine.

True, there were concerns when he spent one bob-a-job week’s takings on buying Armalites for his “family” in Dublin, but his perfect performance in his Air Spotter’s badge (speciality subject “Boeing 747 flight paths over southern Scotland”) soon won over any doubters. In the end we were sad to see him go, but when American jets bombed our scout hut, enough was enough.

So it was nice to see that the Colonel has acknowledged his debt to suburban society and Lord Baden-Powell in his soon-to-be-published autobiography. I only hope that he doesn’t hold a grudge about that the Chinese Burn I gave him during an over-exuberant game of British Bulldog.

OF COURSE, this country has a long tradition of training future dictators and imbuing in them a love of our traditions. It is well known that Idi Amin was a star at Sandhurst, but what is less well known is that he was a fanatical Manchester United fan who regularly used to stand in the Stretford End watching George Best and Denis Law. (Ask some of United’s older hooligans and they will recall in awe some of Idi’s terrace antics.)

And we maintain that stance today. Not only were most of the alleged Tube Bombers happily living on state benefits, but we also shelled out to send them on a publicly-funded white water rafting course where they clearly wiled away the twilight hours by discussing how to assemble household explosives.

All those Abu Handsfree characters that Mr Blah is threatening to deport (yeah, right) seem to have more handouts flowing in than the average family of Scousers. (Although given their customary missing limbs, it must be difficult to turn down their disability benefit.)

I think the point I am trying to make is that we have always welcomed immigrants from every nation and have extended to them not just the hand of friendship, but allowed them access to some of this country’s finest institutions. It would be nice to think that they might repay us with gratitude, rather than gelignite.

ISN’T IT time we gave up on the Space Shuttle programme? It can’t be much fun driving round and round the Earth in a clapped-out equivalent of a 1979 Ford Capri held together with sticky tape and chewing gum.

And what was all that nonsense about them not being able to land because it was raining? This is a spaceship we’re talking about. It is full of computers. They’re hardly going to be peering through a set of squeaking windscreen wipers with their headlights on full beam trying to spot something that looks like America, are they?

Mind you, they did have a woman driver in charge and, given the age of some of the astronauts, it’s a fair bet that her co-pilot was wearing a brown trilby and had a tartan travel rug over his legs. It’s just a good job they got them down before they ran out of travel sweets.

Dan Dare never had these problems.

YOU MAY have noticed that last week a gentleman called Jonathan Morton was jailed for seven years for the manslaughter of his wife, whose body has never been found.

So what, I hear you say. Another jobless scrote strangles his dole scum missus in a spat over where the next bottle of cheap wine is coming from. Ah, but Mr Morton is a millionaire architect and as we all know, millionaires don’t go to jail easily.

More importantly, there didn’t seem to be a single shred of evidence that Mr Morton actually killed his wife. Yes, he knocked her about a bit, but then who doesn’t administer the Fist of Matrimony in extreme circumstances?

It has long been an Englishman’s right to murder his wife as long as her body never turns up. It’s enshrined in Magna Carta. We know it, the cops know it, the courts know it. Pig farmers nationwide who take unexpected “deliveries” late at night know it. It’s like a great game. But now something has changed. I blame Europe. And Mrs Blah.

This is no laughing matter. Consider this: your missus runs off with an Polish masseur she’s met at the local health spa, never to be seen again. Her whining sister, who’s never liked you since you passed water in the spare bedroom wardrobe one Christmas, shops you to the police citing years of alleged physical and mental abuse. (For Christ’s sake, it’s called getting married.)

Next thing you know you’re banged up in chokey with a 20-stone cellmate who wears mascara and makes Big Brother’s Craig look butch. Call that justice? I don’t.

O The views of Mr Beelzebub are purely personal and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Editor or staff of this website, of anyone who doesn’t want to stick needles in Craig’s eyes, of anyone who won’t be voting for Eugene on Friday night, or of anyone who can explain that if the Big Brother housemates are existing on a food budget of £1 a day, how come Makosi’s backside is now the size of the Albert Hall?

The cultural vacuum of celebrity life

BREAKFAST TIME at Beelzebub Mansions. Kedgeree, kidneys and a large glass of port. All is well with the world.

My man Whittaker has been up all night watching Big Brother Live and is consequently late with the papers. Mrs Beelzebub’s People’s Friend has yet to be ironed, so I lend her my copy of The Times. Then the trouble starts.

“Oh look,” she says. “Apparently Sienna has kicked out Jude after he slept with the nanny and is now snogging Orlando who she once went out with after she was married to Jude while he was married to Sadie and she may even be six weeks pregnant.”

“Meanwhile, Jennifer is in tears after Brad went off with Angeline and Tom has got engaged to Katie who’s also got a new film coming out. No mention of Boris’s latest.”

Well thank you for that. I feel the bile rising and have to leave the table, forgoing a second plate of devilled kidneys. Outside I have to cool off with a spot of magpie shooting.

I mean, who are these fucking people? And why are they infecting my television and newspapers? I understand that some of them are film actors, but I can’t recall a single movie any of them has ever been in. All I get are screeds of meaningless tabloidese and daft women wittering on about the situation on breakfast TV.

It’s not as if we were talking Richard Burton or Peter O’Toole, Elizabeth Taylor or Lauren Bacall. They were real film stars, not the know-nothing needy nobodies who purport to be celebrities these days. And that’s why none of our children have realistic ambitions anymore. If idiots like those detailed above can become famous, then surely so can they?

When I were a lad, if you asked the average kid what they wanted to be when they grew up you’d get realistic answers. Train driver was a favourite, along with vet, policeman and nurse. The ginger kid who smelt a bit funny wanted to work in a slaughterhouse, but I think that had more to do with his unresolved emotional issues and deep longing to murder his taunting classmates, rather than any kind of planned career structure.

Ask the average 10-year-old these days what their ambitions are and they either want to be a pop star or a footballer. That’s it. The idea that both fields of employment are firstly highly limited in terms of vacancies and secondly dependant on abundant talent doesn’t seem to have occurred to them. They’ve watched the telly and read the papers. They want some of that instant fame.

So what happens to them when the harsh realities of life kick in? What happens when the next Robbie Williams finds out that he can’t sing or when the next Wayne Rooney is told that he can’t play? We have to pick up the pieces, that’s what. And it’s never their fault, oh no. It’s society ganging up on them.

There is a way to tackle this distorted ambition – classroom quotas. Kids should be told at an early age what their future occupation is going to be, based on government forecasts of labour needs.

“You, Jenkins Minor, are going to be an accountant, so to help you develop the kind of small-minded, unimaginative, number-obsessed mentality that will help you in later life, you can be milk monitor. And kindly address the possibility of re-useable straws, so maximising the lips/bottle ratio of Class 3B.”

“Dixon, you’ll be a policeman, Titmuss, a nurse. Abu Hamza, you’ll do as a rucksack salesman at Millett’s.”

“Paul Dobrowski. You’re ginger and you smell a bit. Down to the slaughterhouse with you.”

You get the picture. And surely that’s better than our next generation wasting their hopes and dreams on fanciful notions that are doomed to end in tears when they could be learning how to unblock a toilet or change the spark plugs on a Rover 25?

WHICH BRINGS us to the latest series of Big Brother. Now I have defended the quality of this programme in the past when it was fashionable for the leather-elbowed Guardianistas to ridicule the “ordinary” people taking part. But no more.

It appears that this time around the producers have solved the tricky issue of casting by simply recruiting the inmates of a local psychiatric ward. We have had a foul-mouthed fishwife whose highpoint was to relieve herself in public like a dray horse in the street. There’s been a comedy drag artist who claimed he’d neglected to tell his parents he was a poofter, although I can’t imagine that red stilettos are common footwear in Penge.

We’ve got a wig-wearing nurse who’s a compulsive liar, a toffee-nosed black Tory whose murky past has still to be unveiled by the tabloids, a geek suffering from an advanced case of Asperger’s Syndrome and a hairy midget Geordie called Anthony who says he’s a “Seventies disco dancer”, whatever one of those is.

But worse, much worse than those, we have Craig, a hairdresser from Norfolk who is an effeminate, man-boobed, grasping control freak, with a severe personality disorder and a crush on the aforementioned Anthony. I tell you, if Anthony had been female, Craig would have been nicked for attempted rape.

And then there’s Kinga, an overweight 20-year-old whose self-esteem is so utterly shot to pieces that she feels the need to flubber her enormous breasts at all and sundry while impersonating an unconventional wine cooler. (Enough said. You’ll know if you saw it.) I wonder what her poor parents must think.

It truly is car crash television: wall-to-wall freaks who are facing some serious counselling once they get out. I’d rather watch that documentary about people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorders who have to wash their hands 37 times an hour. At least they’re proper nutters, not just teenage tosspots.

STUPIDITY ALERT: A dance teacher is to take a PhD at Salford University in the art of “air guitar playing”. For those of you who live in a cultural vacuum (commonly known as Wales) this is the dance-like behaviour of playing an imaginary guitar displayed by 40-year-old Status Quo fans with bald spots on top and inappropriately long hair at the back.

I presume that Salford University (snigger) is publicly-funded. I therefore feel it only fair to point out to Mr Gordon Brown that in response to this educational abberation, I shall in future be paying “air tax”. Thank you.

SO THESE mad mullahs who are preaching hatred while on benefits and supporting the suicide bombers – how come they’re never the one’s on the Circle Line train with the big bag of fertilizer and batteries? If I was a radical young Muslim, I think I’d want to know.

In other terrorist news, Paddington was the subject of a major security alert when armed police ordered a small Peruvian bear to “step away from the suitcase”, while it now emerges that the Brazilian shot dead last week didn’t jump the ticket barriers, didn’t run away from police and wasn’t wearing a large, padded coat. It was, however, a bomber jacket.

IRRITATING TV advert alert: That one for Blockbuster, the video rental people, that features a racially-modified group of young women (one white, one black, one with a touch of the tar-brush, no rucksacks), cracking supposedly funny double entendres while drinking wine and eating crisps in a very modern fashion.

“Stick it in.” “As often as you like.” “Then move onto the next one”. Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. Bernard Manning has got better material.

O The views of Mr Beelzebub are purely personal and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Editor or staff of this website, of anyone surprised to learn that Lulu successfully passed her three-week cholesterol challenge, of anyone surprised that they bought those tiles that keep falling off the space shuttle from B&Q, or of anyone not surprised learn that their dishwasher, which cleans dishes, now requires its only special dishwasher washing tablets to keep it clean.