Consumerism, not curiosity, has taken hold of our children

You can tell that "dumbing down" is a real sociological phenomenon by the way that the listless sniping about it is referred to as a "debate". One isolated piece of evidence will be presented to a - presumably - unsuspecting public, followed by some other one, with yet another waiting on the horizon to offer further ... what?

You can tell that "dumbing down" is a real sociological phenomenon by the way that the listless sniping about it is referred to as a "debate". One isolated piece of evidence will be presented to a - presumably - unsuspecting public, followed by some other one, with yet another waiting on the horizon to offer further ... what?

Yesterday's papers breathlessly reported that a Mori poll of 356 eight- to 11-year-olds had found that half of them didn't know that ham came from pigs, that a third of them thought oranges were grown in Britain, and that a quarter think bread is made from potatoes or rice.

What a startling contrast this makes to the story that the same newspapers breathlessly reported last week. In 1898, we were told, 11-year-olds in Birmingham hoping to go to King Edward's School were expected to pass an exam that would defeat most contemporary A-level students (plus me).

Those children were expected to know not just where ham, oranges and bread came from, but also silver, platinum, tin, wool, wheat, palm oil, furs and cacao. All this really tells us is that the cream of Birmingham's youth knew a lot more about the origins of the ingredients of their material world at the end of the last century than a randomly selected group of children of, on average, a much younger age now knows about the ingredients of their breakfast.

There are all sorts of reasons for this, chief among them being that the consumer society was in its infancy, and people were not encouraged to believe that there were infinite supplies of things easily procured for them. Instead, there was a sense of awe at the human ingenuity it took to ship these valuable resources to Britain where people would be expected to intervene in making then into goods rather than simply utilising them.

If this sounds like part of an argument against dumbing down, then it isn't. Often people do suggest that while we may not carry knowledge around in our heads, children now understand how to log on to the internet and find out right away. But the children who don't know that ham comes from pigs don't know because they do not feel curiosity about the world around them, not because they have not yet got around to looking it up on the internet. They have already learned to consume unquestioningly, like the fat adults who eat sugary fat and watch TV all their short lives.

How did they get like this? My own belief is that the consumer society demands it. The paradox in the recent Mori poll is that it was commissioned by the National Farmers' Union, which has decided it wants a children's programme to show children where food comes from. If Little Red Tractor, the BBC2 programme that aims to educate the nation's children, shows them how much the majority of pigs suffer in this country and how degraded their meat is, then they will have achieved their goal.

Instead, I'll wager, they'll sell them a romantic tale of how ham is produced by the sort of small farmer that agribusiness despises and has been destroying. Because that's what dumbing down is about - the fact that the ignorant consumer is the one who spends most freely. Nowadays it's best not to ask questions about the material world. The truth is usually too disturbing.

¿ Apparently, when Diana asked Charles to stop seeing Camilla he asked her if she expected him to be the only Prince of Wales in history without a mistress. Thinking, therefore, that all she had to do was follow historical precedent, Diana decided that since many royal princesses had had long affairs with staff members, it would be right for her to conduct one with her bodyguard. Alas, the poor idiot of a woman got it wrong, says a book by Lady Colin Campbell. It is acceptable for blood princesses to bed the staff, but not for princesses by marriage. I, for one, am glad that this charming piece of blue-blooded etiquette is out in the open.

Bad film, good art

Tracey Emin is upset because far from being a cause célèbre for angry female teenagers, her debut feature film Top Spot is being described as "boring" even by her friends and allies. The artist withdrew that movie from cinematic release when it was given an 18 certificate because, she argued, it had been made for and about teenage girls. Truthfully, I can't imagine they would have flocked to see it anyway. Teenagers like their movies to have a tiny bit of pace.

I saw it this week, and have to report that I too found myself mumbling halfway through to my companion that Ms Emin seemed no better at making films than she was at making beds. But later something curious happened. I found the images and ideas I had seen in the cinema drifting back into my mind at idle moments. It wouldn't leave me alone. The piece is haunting.

In conventional terms, it's no good. You don't watch a film because you want it to enervate and frustrate you, or because you want to feel irritated and fed up. But heavens, you spend a lot of your teenage years harbouring the former sorts of feelings, and then much of your adult life suffering the latter when confronted with teenage girls en masse.

If teenage girls in sex education classes were put in front of Top Spot, and then encouraged to have a full and frank discussion about the moods and the feelings the film evoked, it would do them all much more good than a lifetime at the shrink. It may not be entertainment, but Top Spot is the most cathartic of art.

Timing is everything, is it? Tell that to the Blairs

It's fun to snigger at the hapless Blairs with their disastrous forays into the property market. The latest is that they can't find anyone to rent their £3.5m acquisition, bought at the top of the market, and now reportedly haemorrhaging cash. Previously we had the Ewan's-flats-in-Bristol disaster, which first led to Cherie blubbing on telly about the pain of sending your son off to join the elite at a top university.

These attempts to get back on the property market are symptoms, it is said, of Cherie's panic about missing out on the great property boom which has characterised her husband's prime ministership. How idiotic they were, one nods in hindsight, to sell their Islington townhouse in 1997, when it has tripled in value since then.

I prefer to believe that it is a measure of the couple's idealism that they sold up before they moved to Downing Street. Like the rest of us, they had high hopes. They didn't believe for a moment that in two terms a Labour government would have made no dent in the failure to provide social housing, while encouraging an inflationary property bubble that drove a greater wedge than ever between the rich and the poor. Not with Gordon Brown, the Robin Hood de nos jours, as Chancellor anyway ...