Mary Beard's Blog, page 60

By their Christmas decorations shall ye know them?

Italy may be collapsing, but -- so far as I have seen in the last week -- it doesn't actually look as if it is collapsing quite as much as the UK does. I am sure that there must be areas of Italy where every other shop on the High St is a charity shop (if not boarded up). But that's not obviously true of the centre of Rome, nor of the very non-touristy area where I am staying (the Viale Marconi) -- nor, for that matter, of the rather grim Ponte di Nona suburb, where I have been today (no shortage of thriving strip-malls there as we discovered).

It feels as if Italy as a country may be bankrupt, but that a lot of Italians are doing very nicely thank you.

And the whole place seems more covered with neon Christmas decorations than I have ever seen it before. And there seem to be more poinsettias than you can even find in New York (where on earth does this poinsettia custom come from?).

Some are reasonably tasteful, like -- I suppose -- the angels on the way up to the Campidoglio (at te top of this post), or the vast tree outside the Colosseum (a gift from Norway?). Others are either frankly horrible (like the neon crib, including camel, in the Piazza Venezia), or merely vulgar (like the Mercedes-sponsored lights near the Spanish Steps).

You only occasionally get a glimpse of the much more traditional Christmas kitsch, like the crib balancing on a heater at the back entrance to the Terme Museum, where we were filming yesterday.

 I guess someome must already have done a PhD on the globalization of Christmas and its decorations. But I realise that I haven't really got much of a clue where it all comes from, after Prince Albert brought us the tree and the Christmas card.

So where did Italy get the tree from? From Germany by a different route? Or did it have them already? And when did every provincial town in Britain start stringing the neon kitsch across its streets to celebrate the holiday? And when did they start simply leaving the damn things up most of the year -- and just switching them on from sometime im November. And when did people in the UK start putting shiny bambis  in their gardens, or climbing Santas up their drainpipes (havent seen any of those here).

I'm sure I don't remember any of that in the 1960s... and, compared with the time-expired municipal brand, I think I might even prefer something new, seasonal and sponsored by Mercedes Benz.

 

That Euro Dinner

In principle, I'm all for a united Europe, a single currency and a fiscal union -- and feel dismayed at the Cameron stance. (Though I have to say that the appalling fates that have been predicted for the UK, outside the "real Europe", haven't so far sounded that dreadful to me "The New Switzerland", "The Singapore of Europe", "Norway without the oil". Could be worse, couldn't it?)

My problem is not the principle. It's how the vast superstate is organised and by whom? Thinking of this tends to bring out the rampant democrat in me. I can't say that I feel too keen on having a national budget "approved" by the European commissioners, and sent back for improvement if it doesn't come up to scratch on their view.

But there's also a giant questionmark, of course, over how you negotiate all this -- horribly brought out by the procedures this week.

I am in Italy right now, and I haven't been following what's been going on hour by hour -- so I'm only just catching up on that dinner and all night meeting.

I'm not sure, in any case, that it is a great idea for anyone to take big, long-term decisions over fiscal union with the pistol of Greek default and Italian collapse held to their heads. But, more to the point, how could anyone make sensible decisions in the way these leaders, elected and un-elected, were asked to do? (Clever as Mario Monti may be, do we really think it is OK for an entirely unelected leader to commit the Italians to a significantly new version of the EU treaty -- even if it IS to their short term advantage?)

OK, the whole public side of these discussions may only be a "staged" version; the real talking might well have been going on elsewhere. But is a nine hour late night dinner a good way of doing important business? The Italian papers are saying the Boyko Borisov (Mr Bulgaria) actually put his hand up a one point and asked to go to bed...and well he might have.

The other reports are equally dispiriting. David Cameron is reported to have drunk nothing but black coffee for 9 hours and to have complained about all the 'blah blah blah' of the technical discussions. Other leaders are said to have "knocked it back" a bit. I think, on balance, I would rather put my trust in the guys who put it away -- and if Cameron really did complain about the blah blah blah of technicalities, then I feel like saying "that blah blah blah is your job, mate".

Then there is all the hierarchy of dining. Apparently the leaders themselves ate in one room, with their EU ambassadors eating next door. They had same food (a slightly strange combination of soup, cod, chocolate cake and ice-cream) but the leaders got better wine (another reason why Cameron's coffee option seems duff one). The idea was presumably to give the leaders the opportunity to bond in private; but maybe it might have been a good idea for them to have had some expert advisors in the room with them (not just a blackberry away).

So think about it: the combination of serious exhaustion, encroaching tipsiness (or irritable sobriety), and too many calories. Is that a great way to rewrite the organisation of Europe?

Perhaps it has always been thus. Perhaps, underneath the formal programme, the conference at Versailles was organised no differently (and my guess is that there would have been rather more booze).

But look what a disaster that was.

 

 

 

Austerity Olympics please

When the Greeks put on such a lavish show at the opening of the 2004 Olympics, I asked my Greek friends who exactly was paying for all this. "The EU", they said smugly . . , well, chickens have come home to roost. In more ways than one. Many of the great Olympic venues in Athens are now rotting (as you see on the right). So much for sustainabilty.

So after these jingoistic parades of the last couple of decades (the Greeks weren't the only ones), I was hoping for a great return to the Austerity Olympics (as of1948). Wouldn't it be a great idea to cut all the crap, forget all the nationalism, and just have a simple parade ofthe athletes without all the glitzy, meretricious and evanescent razzmattaz.

But David Cameron just hasn't got the bottle. He's just doubled the budget for the opening.

I dont really understand how Cameron et al can look us in the eye when they now propose spending 80 million quid on that opening ceremony.

Are the unemployed  supposed to cheer?? And do we believe it will bring in huge investments if we make a great display? Of course we dont (or, if so, foreign investors are more easily impressed than I ever thought..oh great Helmut (or Yang YIn), love the show, lets invest a few billion).

Has everyone in the government forgotten the "less is more"motto? Or any sense of self-deprecating self irony?

I think that most of the world would have cheered to see the Olympics brought back down to size as a sports contest, and not a jingoistic display of jumped up, empty national pride. And most of the country would have felt it better not to squander millions on a single PR occasion while our pensions, jobs etc were being removed very unceremoniously.

The truth is that everyone has a soft spot for London 1948. Couldn't 2012 have done the whole world a great good turn, and reassured those who were suffering that millions of pounds were not being squandered on fireworks.

Why oh why, a firework rather than a school or a hospital?

 

 

A don's inbox

I often think that the blog headlines makes my job look rather different from the (hugely rewarding) day to day reality of univerity teaching. I cant talk to you about what my students said in their supervisions (at least they would be understandably very angry if I did). So we tend to drift to the foreign trips, the big lectures .. and all the stuff that is NOT really the 'day job'.

A couple of years ago I shared a day's emails to try to rectify this a bit. And I am going to try it again. What follows is a list of emails received in the 24 hours between yesterday morning and this morning. I have omitted the 50 something that were mere adverts (British Airways, ASOS etc), or simply circulars (like the nice regular messages from the Danish Embassy), or alerts from Twitter, or clearly spam escaping the filter (like the nice hint that I might have inherited a few million from an intestate Mr Beard in Kenya).

So this is what we have.. a Don's (real) Life!

It was a light day - the last day of term, so none of those irritating messages inviting me to next week's seminar I can't go to anyway (you have been spared!...does anyone ever read an email headed -- as these always are -- "apologies for cross-posting"?).

This is the list:

1. From daughter, re her plans for returning from South Sudan for Christmas..

2. A "a not in the office email" from someone I had just sent a job reference off to.

3. Overdue book from Newnham library - reminder...

4. Accountant reminding me about tax return.

5. Supervisor of one of my undergraduate students, acknowledging my thanks for his very helpful report on her work this term.

6. From colleague in Oxford, whom I had emailed -- to say that one of my  students (same as in 5) was considering a Masters course there, and she would be emailing him.

7. Message about book to be considered for Cambridge series of which I am an editor.

8. From Profile Books, thanking me for details about my recent New York lecture.

9. From daughter again, now in Gogrial, S Sudan.

10. Message from Cambridge e-cops (the local email police service) reminding me of the precautions I should be taking if I go away at Christmas:

"Once more we would like to remind you about the measures you could take before leaving your house
empty while going Christmas shopping or visiting your relatives in another part of England or perhaps the World."

The charming side of the nanny state.

11. Confirmation from a colleague that he can take my student for the Aeneid next term.

12.Request for a reference for  a PhD candidate.

13.Nice message from a guy who enjoyed my Point of View programmes.

14. Confirmation that I can delay my first year PhD student's formal registration til January (as no one can do it pre Xmas).

15. Invitation to talk at a literary festival.

16. From a supervisor of one of my Newnham students.. he has submitted a report, but it hasn't appeared on the online system (others have.. something going wrong, and I am seeing the students one by one to discuss the reports on their work)

17.From tv about what we can (or cannot) film in Rome in December.

18.Reminder from the TLS that I haven't looked at a submitted article.

19. Response from tv.

20. Intervention from colleague about how we might do a Classics publicity event in the spring.

21.Message from Cambridge University Press, to say that a new book in the series I partly edit for them is out.

22. Message from Union (I'm a member) about strike and more.

23. Cv etc from student who wants a reference instantly.

24. Acknowledgement of reference for another student, received.

25. Email from an undergraduate. I had passed on to her very favourable comments from a supervisor. She is pleased.

26. Message from my co-Director of Studies at Newnham. She is happy to take on teaching one student I want her to. Agrees we should meet at the weekend to discuss applicants for next year.

27. From a colleague in the British Academy re. the lecture programme.

28. From US publisher, wanting my views on a submission.

29. Questions from a Brazilian journalist about the origins of Christmas.

30. Acknowledgement of another reference submitted.

31. Message from a mate who has agreed to take on a tough job re the up-coming REF (which I had asked him to do).

32. Photos from author of book in my Wonders of the World series.

33. Further to 26.. where shall we meet?

34. Arrangement to talk to REF friend at 8.30 am on Saturday.

35. PS to 34. Could also do the same time on Sunday.

36. Nice email from MPhil studemnt coming round to my place on Sunday: would I like white or red?

37. Agreed (re 36) that he will talk to the others.

38. Question from a Mum whose son is keen to do Ancient History, but doesnt have good A level grades. Could I advise? (I write back to ask just what the grades are.. then I can suggest.).

39. From a graduate student who would like to work with me in Cambridge.

40. Message from colleague, with suggestions (as I had asked) about who might supervise one of my undergraduates for a special subject next year.

 41. From son. I had forgotten to take back from New York the present he had for his Dad (the husband).

42. Email from an undergraduate supervisor... I had asked him if he had submitted comments on the student's work to the online reporting system (CAMCORS). He had, but it had never got through. So he includes report for me to pass on to the student.

43.From graduate student who is sharimng the teaching of a final year undergraduate dissertatiuon with me.

44. Very nice email from College donor and alum, who has just made a further donation.

45. Proof from NYRB of the text version of the lecture I gave on Weds in New York. Already???

46. From another supervisor having trouble with the online system, but enclosing report on the student.

47. From assistant re forms to be submitted to NYC for tax examption.

48. Message to say that student I was second interviewing for another college on Monday has withdrawn.

49. More suggestions about British Academy lectures.

50. Request to translate a motto into Latin (I do these if simple, orherwise pass on to the local motto writer).

51. From daughter, planning for Christmas.

52. From MPhil student wanting advice on his next few months' scheme of work.

That is real life, as lived (and exposed) in email.

 

 

 

 

 

Educational tourism

There is something deeply frustrating about many of the bright new educational ideas headlined by all political parties. I mean the 'educational tourism' ones. They are easy to recognise. Some minister or shadow minister has been on a visit to Norway, the United States or wherever, and returns home with an 'idea' for schools or universities -- whether is is how to raise the basic skills of 11 year olds, or how to increase diversity among undergraduates -- which they proceed to wave around (often accusing the educational professionals here of blindness to exciting new developments overseas).

They sometimes haven't got wise to such problems of these schemes as could be discovered  by a quick trawl on google (the issues surrounding New York charter schools, for example).They sometimes don't appear to have thought about the key structural differences between one (superficially similar) system and another.

That is especially apparent in admissions to university, where the USA and the UK are really non-comparable -- for the simple reason that American kids normally aren't entering into subject specific degree programmes right away, but specialise later. So they can reasonably be selected by non-specialists (who might indeed be charged with particular targets for ethnicity, social background etc). We, on the other hand, are normally choosing students for specialised courses, to be completed in three years. You surely have to involve specialists, not general adminstrators for that.

For Universities, America is the usual stick with which the UK higher education sector is beaten. And some are truly, truly excellent (albeit different from what we expect). But not all. So it was useful to read Tony Grafton's article in the NYRB a couple of weeks ago, discussing US universities across the board. Take the time an undergraduate student spends to get a degree at even the best public universities: in a handful, 90% or more graduate within 6 years; most have a much lower rate than that... and the drop-out rate (not simply delayed completion) is much higher than anything we would be happy to accept. It should be required reading for every minister of higher education.

The funny thing is that I saw the 'boot on the other foot' a few days ago, and had a glimpse of what happens when you talk about the UK system when you dont really understand it. I was reading Martha Nussbaum's new book Not For Profit, in all sorts of ways, an excellent defence of the humanities at university level.But when she gets onto the terrible things that are happening in British universities, she is seriously misleading. True, terrible things are happening, but not quite what she implies.

"British faculty do not have tenure any longer, so there is no barrier to firing them at any time," she writes. True, "tenure" was abolished, with the result that academics can now be made redundant (and departments closed); and I am sure that has sometimes been misused. But that is NOT to say that they can be fired at any time (and of course they could have been fired before, when they had "tenure" for a variety of crimes, like "gross moral turpitude" or whatever).

And she goes on to suggest that there is no regular sabbatical system in the UK any longer and the ONLY way that we can get leave is by applying for competitive grants. Again, not true in that form.

You have to be careful when you stray into some other country's educational system.

 

 

 

"Shagging for chastity"?

I didnt try to go and hear David Willetts speak about the future of universities on Tuesday. A feeble excuse -- you have the Minister of State for Higher Education showing up in Cambridge for a 30 minute talk followed by an hour's discussion, and you say you are too busy, Beard? But I am now very glad that I didnt try to rearrange my life. -- because as many of you will already know --  a group of twenty or thirty students (and some senior members) disrupted his talk as he started to speak, first with a prepared chant, then occupying the stage. Willetts went home without saying a word.

If I HAD showed up I would have been furious (for pretty selfish reasons). Instead I think I feel more embarrassed, on the part of the institution. I think that Willetts' policies for universities are almost wholly misguided; and I think it is really encouraging to see students engaging with the politics of Higher Education (instead But stopping him explain his views and then discuss them, is folly.

For a start it is a terrific own goal. Willetts will go round for months saying that he had tried to talk at Cambridge but he had been forced off the stage (that's what I would say in his position anyway). But more important -- as most people I've talked to in Cambridge think -- to prevent someone (because you dont agree with them) voicing their views is to flout what the university is all about. Protest, yes; tough argument, yes. But the university (and indeed these students above many others) are committed to the principle of free speech... so what were they doing stopping it.  As Simon Goldhill, the organiser of the event, characteristically put it, "you cant shag for chastity". (Quoted here)

The protestors say in reply that there is no point in "having a dialogue" with Willetts, because he doesnt listen. And the time for "debate" has gone. If that's true, then the whole principles of politics we stand for has been eroded: we are resorting to shouts, barracking and blocking our ears (and the end stop on this route is the bullet). But I dont think it is true.

It is always easy to say that the person with whom you disagree "isnt listening". (Logic: if they were listening to me, they would change their minds; they are not changing their minds, so they are not listening . . . but maybe they just don't agree.) In this case, the only people who were definitely not listening were the students. In fact, by and large, in my very limited experience, Willetts is one of those rare ministers who ARE prepared to go out and discuss his proposals widely.

Looking at the video of the occasion,  though, I had a second reaction. The event had not attracted a packed audience. If it hadnt been for the student protestors, it would have looked decidedly thin. Perhaps most of us felt as busy as I did. Maybe we had all got tired with Willetts after the "Willetts vote" (which ironically ended in a dead heat). But maybe the students should concentrate on activising the university at large.

Online etiquette

 

One of the things that I really like about this blog, is that the commenters are (by and large!) courteous, on-topic and full of relevant learning (and languages). The comments engage with, and add to, the blog. Most people have read the original post very carefully .. too carefully sometimes, if you ask me (that's why they pick up all the errors of punctuation.... but thanks all). And they (I mean, you) make the blog more the sum of its parts.

I've only recently come to realise quite how different we are from the usual online postings. I've been doing a few BBC talks and the comments on these are nothing of our sort... there are some careful engagements, that's true, and I'm hugely grateful for those, whether pro or anti. But a frightening lot of the comments that appear on the Have Your Say BBC website seem to be driven by different versions of bile. Same is true for the Guardian Comment, Mumsnet .. or really any big commenting site.

There is an awful lot of 'this is rubbish'. 'you are a complete idiot to write this'... or "ho  ho old lady, do you have a beard?'

My first reaction is slight fear. My second is to wonder what makes otherwise ordinary people write this vicious stuff when they get online, when they wouldn't do so otherwise. It is partly the pseudonyms, I think. On this blog most commenters use their own names, or their first names or initials: you/we/I are there as 'us'. On an awful lot of big public blogs, people adopt all kinds of 'noms de comment' .. like "StrawberryJam" or "RainingCatsandDogs" or "QueenElizabeth1" and so on. My hunch is that this kind of 'para-identity' somehow allows people to write in a way that they would never do under their own names. It gives them a licence to be rude, in a way that they would never be face to face.

Strangely (and a bit unnervingly), some keen commenters seem to bond with their soubriquets. When I misremembered the complicated soubriquet of one regular commenters on Mumsnet, she replied that it was an insult to get it wrong. An insult not to remember an online nickname? Come on..

It's also the sense -- when people are commenting on my online articles -- that they think are talking online about someone who isnt really a person. That's partly why I respond to some of even the most aggressive comments. It's just to remind everyone that there is 'me', a real person, there. And actually one who might  be hurt by unmitigated vitriole.

I also think that NOT to reply is bad in itself. If you 'put yourself about' on the web or the radio, there is a duty (and in a way a pleasure) to respond and discuss. It not only reminds the commenter that there is a human being out there; it also confirms the general idea that we're in dialogue, not just in lecture. And I have found some good friends this way, in the constructive diagreements between 'author' and reader you can set up with 'new technology".

All the same, I do have one basic rule for online commenting. Cut all that "rubbish" amd "idiot" talk; only respond on the web as you would do if you were talking face to face. For me, it's a bit like reviewing: only say what you would say if you met the reviewer over a drink.

 

 

 

The Future of Classics at New York Public Library

I've really got down to pulling together the  big lecture I'm giving in New York on the 30th November (thereby -- all being well -- missing out on the strikes on this side of the Atlantic). It's at the New York Public Library, where I am ashamed to say I have never been -- but they have a wonderful website and loads of historic images online (really useful). And it's a lecture in honour of Bob Silvers, the editor of the New York Review of Books... who will be there. So I had better make it good!

Bob's idea (and mine) was for me to talk about 'the future of classics'... so it's called 'Do the Classics have a future?". The big issue is how to get a handle on the question, which amounts to more than an hour-long version of the one word "Yes".

One way to go would be to pull the obvious surprise. Answer "no" instead... "Mary Beard says Classics are dead" shock. But that would amount to an equally dreary hour, and wouldnt actually but what I think.

So I'm trying to find a way between and beyond the usual discussions of this -- you know the stand-offs in which the opposing sides slug out with the same old arguments: 'nobody knows Latin and Greek any more and Classic departments are closing down all over the place" vs "look at success of Gladiator and the number of kids learning Latin in a new program in the Bronx'.

It seems to me that you have to think a lot harder about what 'Classics' is; and I dont think that it amounts to Classics courses in univesities, or in the Bronx for that matter; and it isn't simply people liking Roman epics (which they have done for years and years--back to the 19th century and before). So what is it.

Well today I am going to spend a few hours on Terence Rattigan's The Browning Version (and two of the different attempts to make it into a movie) -- and think about that wonderful moment where the boy brings old Crocker Harris a present of Browning's translation of Aeschylus' Agamemnon (a marvellous moment of the enmeshment of the ancient world in modern culture, but handled rather differently -- with more or less intelligence -- in the different movies...). I think there might be an unexpected 'angle' there. We shall see; nice way to spend a Sunday, even if not.

Anyway the lecture is at 7.00 pm on the 30th at NYPL... and readers of a Don's Life can have a 40% discount on the $25 ticket price. Just enter the coupon code CLASSICS when you go to the online booking site. And for those who show up on the day (hope some blog readers will), there will be a free issue of the New York Review holiday issue.

 

 

Better a dictator than a technocrat

You can see the problem for Italy and Greece. But to go from the mad excesses of (what turned out to be) foolish democracy, to the de facto imposition of an entirely unelected leader (approved, no doubt, by the Eurocrats) seems a bit of a 'frying-pan-into-the-fire' situation.

Sure, sensible political systems have some fall-back position for how to cope in a crisis, when the usual democratic arrangements are in danger of simply not managing. The Republican Romans had the institution of 'dictatorship', which on balance seems a  better option than these technocrats (a term which is not far short of a euphemism for "banker")

The trouble about 'dictator' is that the institution got nastily tainted in the first century BC by Lucius Cornelius Sulla and Julius Caesar -- both of whom in their different ways, hijacked the office for long term, autocratic one man rule, and radical political reform (ultimately to the benefit of themselves and/or their faction). That's the sense that 'dictatorship' still has.

But before that, it really was a short term emergency office; certainly not sinister.

One of the basic principles of politics in Republican Rome was that political office was always SHARED. Noone held political office independently, but always with a colleague. So even the very highest office, the consulship, was shared between two men. (This was largely an attempt to safeguard the political system against anyone making himself a king.) Sometimes however,  for the most part when the Romans were facing a particularly tough military opponent, there was a feeling that 'joint command' (for the consuls acted as military generals as well as civilian politicians) wasn't going to bring off victory; that one man was needed to make the big decisions on their own, not in committee. On those occasions, a 'dictator' was nominated by the senate or consuls themselves. They were to serve for an absolute maximum of six months, and were supposed to lay down the office anyway once the crisis had passed.

One of the most famous of these dictators was Cincinnatus (whose name lies behind the city of Cincinnati). In our terms he was a right wing ideologue, but was a hero of propriety when it came to the dictatorship. Having been consul in the past, he accepted the senate's request that he become dictator while working on his farm ("Cincinnatus called from the plough" as his tag-line went), and as soon as he had secured the victory, he laid the office down. The modern sculpture at the top shows him giving back the symbols of the dictatorship (the fasces) and returning to the plough.

The advantages of this over the technocrats? For a start, the time period for the suspension of democratic government is strictly limited. Secondly, this wasnt the flying in of someone outside the political process; dictators were generally senior figures who had previously been democratically elected to political office.

Pity the 'dictatorship' got abused and got a bad name. Come to think of it, maybe "technocrat" will have become a term of abuse in a thousand years time.

Mini-Miss Worldwide

By a nice (or very nasty) coincidence, I had just decided that the Miss World competition probably wasn't near the top of my list of enemies, when I found a "beauty contest" that was really truly dreadful: Mini-Miss Worldwide.

Last week (as you catch here) I had watched the 2011 Miss World competition -- and though it wasn't exactly my cup of team it didn't actually needle me into rage. It was all a bit staid, and a bit aggressively worthy; not to mention positively -- and slightly unconvincingly -- oozing with high-flying female ambition (all the contestants were wanting to be lawyers, diplomats and the like).

Besides, as I reflected, it was so much less ghastly than the appallingly voyeuristic Britain's Got Talent -- where the exploitation of children and frail adults is never far from the surface (think about the visible agonies of Susan Boyle, and the tears of eleven year old Hollie Steel that were broadcast to an eager nation). Simon Cowell, who must count as the Michael O'Leary of talent competition impresarios, doesn't give an inch. Talking of the Hollie Steel he merely pointed the finger at her Mum  -- "Kids aren't dragged on the show – parents bring them. Kids are always going to be disappointed if they don't win. Most of the kids I've seen during auditions had a blast. If I thought they weren't enjoying themselves I'd do something about it.".

Well, it's true that parents have something to answer for. But who's putting the show on -- and not for charity after all? With this kind of stuff scooping up the viewers, it seemed hard to get very cross about a group of apparently stable adults parading in bikinis.

What I hadn't realised was that there was something much worse going on, a kind of combination of Miss World and the junior end of BGT: Little Man and Mini Miss Worldwide (according to the Sun, there were 51 finalists aged from 1 to 15).

The winner of this particular title 2011 was an 11 year old called Bethany Jade Fenton, who was interviewed with her Mum on Saturday Live this morning, by the Rev Richard Coles. The Rev Richard was extremely charming, while Mum and daughter talked chillingly about catwalks and the 'glitz pageants' (where you get dolled up in all the adult make-up) and about how Bethany wanted to be a model when she grew up (though "university" did come up). He didn't press them very hard about the nature of these occasions (his queries were more on how much time it took up) and overall the conclusion seemed to me that Bethany had really grown up thanks to this kind of stuff and was now putting her hand up in class (maybe I thought she was just a bit older.

It didn't take much on to undermine the idea that this was all about kids being natural: the pictures you can find of Bethany on Google don't look like your average 11 year old to me. Try this or this. And the idea that we are dealing with real free choice here (any more than with child tennis stars) is entirely implausible.

The Sun's article on the whole show was typically having it all ways. The pushy Mums were the main targets, and there was the Agony Aunt worrying about the loss of the joys of childhood for the contestants. But they gave plenty of space to glamourous pics of these poor kids... and not a mention of the Sun's notorious campaign against "paedophiles".