Status Anxiety | 2 February 2008

As a father of three small children, I find myself constantly baffled by what is known in our household as ‘the boredom paradox’. Why is it that my four-year-old daughter considers a trip to Loftus Road to watch QPR battle against relegation ‘boring’, while her enjoyment of the same six episodes of Numberjacks can never be diminished, no matter how many times she watches the DVD? The idea that small children are open-minded and imaginative is completely ridiculous. They resemble nothing so much as members of the provincial, middle-European bourgeoisie — petty little martinets who view any change in their routine as an act of unconscionable aggression. Men may be from Mars and women from Venus, but children are from Belgium.

Consequently, it was with unconfined joy that I greeted the decision of Berca — the government’s educational technology body — to condemn the Three Little Pigs on the grounds that ‘the use of pigs raises cultural issues’.