Press reports quoted some of the groan-worthy efforts produced by thetrial group. What do you get when you cross a car with a sandwich?Answer later, but don't raise your hopes.
The project team were clearly delighted to see young people suddenlyable to engage in the daft exploration of language that awful punsinvolve. "Wonderful," said one researcher. "Their joy and enthusiasm atentertaining others was inspirational," said another.
If you really want to know, the answer is "traffic jam". But, it's theway they tell them.
- "At the start of the new school term, give them a head start," ran theadvert for Kellogg's Cornflakes. "Research shows that when they eat acereal like ours, kids are on average 9 per cent more alert."
But fans of the Advertising Standards Authority are even more alert thanthe average cornflake-filled school pupil. They complained and theauthority agreed the claim was misleading.
Yet it never criticised the images that showed a schoolboy eating. Histie curled up and his spoon spun round. Can't we have a ruling on howmisleading that is?
- On Father's Day, Times columnist Mary Ann Sieghart waxed fervent onthe changing role of men in childcare. The "purely breadwinning role"'she said, is "going out of fashion as fathers try to share childcaremore equally with their partners".
Last week The Times reported research showing that modern men continueto work the same hours after becoming fathers.
Esther Dermott, the sociology lecturer who led the research, told thereporter that new fathers are more emotional, turn up at sports day, andwant to build a relationship with their child. "If we mean: rearrangeshis employment in order to prioritise childcare then we don't havethat." Ah.
SOUNDBITE
"We would better protect the public from being victims of further crimesif we were locking up fewer children" - Rod Morgan, chair of the YouthJustice Board.
