Just before Christmas a leading advertising company asked me to give them my views on the state of Britain's youth. Obviously they're trying to work out what makes the high-spending around-20 generation tick, so they're consulting widely and they're interested in teenagers because they're the high-spenders of the future. I had to concentrate my mind before I answered. On the one hand, we have a more-caring, more socially aware group than perhaps ever before. On the other hand we have a generation that, in large part, seems to be trashing itself to death. More than a quarter of girls in the 15 to 16 age group admit to binge-drinking and a report which looked at 35 countries found that we had "exceptionally high levels of heavy drinking and illicit drug use." An analysis of more than 100,000 teenagers last year showed that 29pc of girls binge drink compared with 26pc of boys. In 1995 the figures were 24pc for boys and 20pc for girls. This is not the sort of equality I thought I was fighting for years ago, the opportunity to out-drink the lads. Last week a judge denounced female binge drinking as he sentenced an 18-year-old for repeatedly kicking another woman in the face. He said: "Who would have believed it five years ago? Women fighting in the streets like animals ... or should I say like young men?" Martin Plant, a professor of addiction studies, blames "a completely feckless and irresponsible cheap drinks promotion" which he thinks has led to "the sole motivation for going out at night to compete over how much they can drink." At the same time sexually transmitted diseases are escalating, abortions abound and teenage pregnancies remain high. It is the age of the one night stand, frequently half-forgotten in the morning. Sometimes they do not even exchange names. It's not a pretty picture is it? And yet the hundreds of letters I receive from that same age group are full of longing for something better, for a real relationship, a stable environment and a peaceful future. And they care desperately about inequality, the plight of the Third World and the environment. The Government says "tackling alcohol and substance misuse by young people is a top priority," but before we can stop bingeing and drug-taking we need to find out why a generation with the world at its feet is so miserable that it looks hell bent on throwing it all away. I think I might have stumbled upon a clue this week. Waiting for a train I was surrounded by students going home for Christmas. One pretty girl was struggling with mounds of luggage. "Is someone meeting you at the other end?" her friend asked. "No" came the reply. "I phoned but they were both too busy." I'm sure they will give her money for a cab and a Christmas stocking full of designer gear, but that's not quite the same as a pair of welcoming arms, is it? * Denise Robertson cannot enter into any personal correspondence. ******** Shameless way to court publicity Of course the theatre showing the Sikh play shouldn't have succumbed to violence and taken it off. That really is a blow against freedom of speech. But I can't say I admire the Sikh playwright unless she has good evidence that rape and abuse do take place in temples. If they do, then she is right and brave to speak out. If she's making it up, she should have thought twice. Like any other freedom, free speech goes hand in hand with responsibility. I've read extracts from the play and it's strong stuff. If it's setting is based on fact, that's fine. If not, why set it in a temple? Rape and abuse take place everywhere so she can't have been short of a location. I thought about it as I was being driven through London, seeing the posters for Channel Four's Shameless, which have caused a lesser but no less heartfelt fuss. The poster displays the Last Supper but Jesus is the drunken father from Shameless, sprawled across the table with a fag in his hand. The disciples are the other family members in various stages of disarray. Shameless is in line for a comedy award. Does it need to distort an image sacred to many people? Couldn't it have shown the hilariously dysfunctional family as themselves? Then we could have laughed without a frisson of unease. Except that using The Last Supper has brought pages of publicity which would have cost a king's ransom had it had to be paid for. Or am I being a tad too cynical? ******** A door closed in her face... A Romany gypsy has been allowed to keep his caravan on the Green Belt because "he has an aversion to bricks and mortar." I don't wish to be harsh on him but I wonder why the same leniency couldn't be offered to the wheelchair-bound woman living alone in a conservation area who couldn't manage her heavy front door. She had it removed, stored it to put back when she moved, and replaced it with a lighter but identical door in a man-made material. The planners held up their hands in horror. In spite of the fact that this maroons her in her house unless she has help, she has been forced to put back the original door because planning laws are inviolate. Only for some, it seems. Only for some. ********** Heaven forgive me, but I'm having a gloat. For years I've listened to Simon Hoggart berating anyone in public life who fibbed. Indeed, as he was fond of pointing out, Archer and Aitken went to jail for telling porkies. I saw him reduce Christine Hamilton to tears at an awards ceremony and his smugness on that day was almost suffocating. On Radio 4's News Quiz he flayed anyone who'd been the least bit naughty. Now he's been caught out in a whopper - any suggestion that he'd had an affair with Kimberly Quinn was b******t he said. Twenty-four hours later, he owned up. The biter is bit. The holier than thou is holed below the waterline. And I'm finding it unforgivably satisfying. ********** As long as I don't have to pay for it, I'll carry an identity card. The DSS know about me, the Inland Revenue know about me, the NHS knows me inside out. What else is left to hide? And if the cards are bio-metric, or whatever it's called, and my iris or my face-shape is on it, at least no scheming villain will be able to masquerade as me. | 
