Frightening tales of abuse and "grooming" continue to surface in spite of countless warnings, tough television campaigns, major news stories, court cases, runaway children, paedophiles and police pledges to hunt down the perpetrators of porn on the internet. This week thousands of our children will have spent hours in front of their computers, playing games, surfing the net, downloading music or "chatting" to friends old and new in various parts of the country. Much of their activity will have been completely innocent and entirely harmless which is just as well since most of their parents will not have a clue what they have been looking at. Indeed, most mums and dads seem only too happy that their children have been occupied this week. Some may even kid themselves that their children have been learning something and seem not to know whether the material that has so absorbed their sons and daughters in their half-term week has been of their own choosing - or has suddenly appeared, unsolicited, to draw them towards another level. Last week, you'll recall, I wrote about Peter Andre, the canny, spiky haired singer from Australia who'll be number one this time next week with his old hit Mysterious Girl. Naturally enough I looked him up on the internet to check out some information. There he was, with scores of sites to choose from. Yet when I clicked on one of them, I was suddenly "hit" by a whole series of pop-ups inviting me to view a whole range of gay sex sites and porn videos. Every time I tried to close one of the pop-ups down, another one appeared. Getting rid of them all took time - and never mind the nuisance factor. Now if you imagine just how many "hits" Peter Andre will have had in the last couple of weeks - and how many young people will have been eager to find out about him - you can see how easy it is to fall prey to the evils of the net. I was telling this story to an IT expert the other day who works on school networks. He expressed no surprise at all at the ease with which I had access to X-rated material. "You'd be amazed and horrified if you knew what children are tapping into even on school computers," he said. "We spend hours deleting the sites they have tried to get into while at school. Yes, there is software available that parents can buy to lock their children out of unsuitable sites. The problem is that even if you gave the software to every parent, they wouldn't bother installing it. "Many do not even know how to work a computer or what to look for. They refuse to believe what their children are capable of and how quickly they can become involved." Believe it, folks, or you have only yourself to blame. *********** It's been quite a week for beauty and glamour, what with the glowing Emma Thompson, understated Renee Zellweger and Marilyn-like Scarlett Johansson stealing the show at the BAFTAs and singer Beyonce Knowles totally eclipsing the rest at the Brits on Tuesday. In fact, don't you agree that Beyonce is probably the most beautiful woman in the world right now? It almost makes you want to spit! *********** Eldest son rang me at work as he prepared to set off on the school trip to Berlin. "Have you got everything? I asked " Of course he had, he said. "Have you got a pen?" asked anxious mum. "Why would I possibly need a pen?" he queried. "Well, it is a school trip and you might have to take some notes," I said naively. "Write things down?" came the scornful response. "We won't be doing any of that!" *********** There has been so much reality TV on our screens of late that it's hard to know what's actual and what isn't. Hence the woman telling a friend how she'd gone to a lovely wedding the other day and hadn't even had to wear a hat. "Where was it?" my friend asked. "Oh, it was on the telly," said the woman. "The Coronation Street wedding was so well done I felt like I was there among the guests..." *********** How's this for a coincidence? A pal shopping in Newcastle the other day literally bumped into someone she hadn't seen since school, back in 1968. They recognised each other straight away and struck up a conversation. "Did you ever hear what happened to so-and-so?" asked my pal, naming a girl who had also been a classmate. "No," said the other person, "but look, there she is now." And at that precise moment the third woman appeared. *********** Obesity levels continue to rise and people everywhere get hot under the collar about our children and the rubbish they eat. Meanwhile, there are chocolate Easter eggs in supermarkets and Newcastle's Centre for Life enjoys record numbers of visitors for a special children's session on chocolate in which they are invited to eat as much as they want. In the outside world, Britney Spears joins Beyonce and Pink in an ad for Pepsi and Bobby Robson, Terry Venables and Gary Lineker advertise crisps. Justin Timberlake sings the slogan for McDonald's and Dawn French does Terry's chocolate orange. And there's no point in denying what Sugar Puffs are made from. Free fruit in schools, an incentive to healthy eating? It's an utter waste of money. I was interested in the trials on a new kind of supermarket trolley that will - it's said - relieve the bad back brigade who struggle to get things in and out of the usual ones. In my view it's not the shape of the existing trolleys that is wrong. It is the wheels - too big and clunky - and the actual layout of the supermarkets themselves that make shopping so difficult. Why do the fruit and veg come at the start of the shop and not the end where it won't get squashed? Why is the bread always in the middle - with the eggs when both items have to be handled with care? Why aren't water and breakfast cereals at the beginning so big boxes and bottles can stand up? And why can't shoppers be given an insulated bag when they go into the supermarket into which they can place frozen items? Oh, and finally, why does the supermarket I visited the other day sell things like pigs' ears in clear bags so you can see inside? All right, so they're a doggy delicacy but I don't want to see them next to the tins of soup. Neither did my colleague, whose three-year-old son picked them off the display stand and brought them to her for identification! Mind you, once he heard what they were, he certainly didn't want them. *********** Marc - aged three - pulled a face when his mum told him he was accompanying her to church last Sunday. "I don't like going to church any more," he bleated, as he watched his dad go off to play football. "Why not?" asked his mum. "Because Jesus is never there when I get there," he said. *********** A reader has taken me to task for giving the thumbs-down last week to I'm a Celebrity winner Kerry McFadden. I had taken her to task for opting to miss her youngest daughter's first birthday to spend her two weeks in the jungle. However, I never offered a word of criticism about her husband Bryan who left his two daughters at home in Ireland and flew out to enjoy a week of partying in Australia before greeting his wife and flying home. My critic, it should be said, was a man! *********** Do you think Gateshead teenager Emma Shiel tells people she has a Mickey Mouse job when she heads off to France this summer to appear as the famous mouse at Disneyland Paris? | 
