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  Monday 9th May 2005  Society   Powered by Yeast Logic
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Inner-city kiddies in cutlery-handling deprivation shocker

Lacking vital social skills
by Oliver James

Hot of the heels of the depressing revelation that large numbers of school children have to put up with a lunchtime repast of breaded rat testicles and floor sweepings from the local boiled sweet factory comes news that a hefty minority of the nation's offspring start their educational life without an essential modern-day skill.

Incredibly, it appears that up to a third of all children starting school in inner London "arrive with none of the social skills associated with cutlery", according to a teachers' union report. They blame the parents.

This is thought to stem from the decrease in families gathering together around the table to enjoy a sociable meal during which a friendly discussion might have the chance to degenerate into serious physical violence. "Many four and five-year-olds have never properly stabbed anyone or given someone else's face a good slashing simply because they're not getting the correct guidance or equipment in the domestic environment," explained one union rep. "After all, you don't need a knife to eat oven-ready microwaveable rehydrogenated novelty fish shapes washed down with Sunny D. Ninety per cent of kids on some council estates have never seen a knife, let alone attack their brother with one in an argument over who's got the most ham slicettes in their Luncheable."

This lack of knife dexterity has meant that these children are unable to defend themselves when challenged to relinquish their mobile phone on the way to school or when picked upon in the playground at break time because their trainers are not sufficiently expensive.

It seems incredible that in 21st-century Britain there could be kids so deprived of knowledge about the country's glorious heritage of gratuitous violence but there are clearly some who are. "Since schools meals were contracted out, many kids have to put up with plastic cutlery or even just using their hands for burgers and chips," snorted one man who remembers the good old days of proper metal utensils and stabbing his fellow diners under the table.

"There is no way that young people can prosper in today's Britain without knife skills," explained one Head at a comprehensive in Islington so good that at least one Labour councillor is known to have given passing consideration to recommending a relative's friend's special needs offspring to go there. "Whatever happens in school, when they go out into the big wide world they'll have to be correctly tooled up and right now they're not learning how to do that."

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