Given all the everyday injustices, cruelty, misery and suffering thatchildren's charities come across in their work, it must take a lot toprovoke fury.
So why were the charities so enraged? Townshend had published a shortstory online. Part of it was a character's reminiscences of early sexualexperiences, aged 16.
Pointing out that Townshend is on the Sex Offenders' Register, TinkPalmer, of children's charity Stop It Now!, thought what he did was"most ill-advised". Michele Elliot, director of Kidscape, toldjournalists: "Responsible adults should not put graphic details ofteenagers having sex on the web. It's just a form of titillation."
Err, and that's it.
- A headline in the Daily Telegraph alerted its readers to dramatic newsabout schools. "School vetting 'fails to keep out perverts'."
Notice the quote marks around "fails to keep out perverts". It sounds asif this was the explicit finding of the Ofsted report, SafeguardingChildren. It wasn't. In fact, nowhere in the 36-page evaluation doesOfsted mention perverts.
It's a new use of quotation marks. It means "we made this bit up".
- It troubles a lot of adults that relatively few men teach youngchildren. But what do children think?
Researchers asked more than 300 children aged seven and eight whethertheir teacher's gender mattered.
It didn't. Most said teaching quality was the key. The academic who ledthe project said boys were just as likely to say they wanted to be liketheir women teachers as their male teachers. And vice versa for thegirls.
Will this stop women teachers being made to feel inadequate whenteaching boys. Possibly not. But it is good to hear children being askedwhat they think, for once.
SOUNDBITE
"I'm going to carry on wearing it because the bullies should not beallowed to win"
Seven-year-old Hugo Clapshaw who was attacked by a man in an Edinburghpark for wearing an England football team shirt.
