twentyfiveseven

Saturday night at eight o'clock discovered me not at the motion pictures however at the Cinema Museum, a surprise gem near the Oval cricket ground in South London, situated in a previous workhouse which was briefly home to the young Charlie Chaplin after his mom fell on difficult times.

Truth be informed, I rarely endeavor south of the river. As Dave, from the Winchester Club, alerted Arthur Daley: 'Lot of really wicked people' in Sarf Lunnon.

Coincidentally, the event was a one-man program by my old mate George Layton, actor, director, scriptwriter, author, whose finest hour - at least to my mind - was playing Des, the dodgy cars and truck mechanic in Minder.

George read from his collection of brief stories set in the 1950s, when he was maturing in post-war Bradford. They're perfectly composed, warm, funny, expressive, a piece of history, a working-class version of Richmal Crompton's Just William experiences.

The stories are based on the trials and tribulations of a young boy being raised by a single mom - a non-traditional domesticity back then, sadly only too common today. The Fib And Other Stories has actually remained in print since 1975 and discovered its way on to the school curriculum, where it remains today.

I can't assist questioning, though, how typically these glorious texts are utilized in class these days, in between teachers stuffing their students' little heads with trendy far-Left propaganda about 'white privilege', colonialism and, naturally, climate modification.

The kids in the monochrome school photo which formed the backdrop to George's reading were definitely white, however no one could have explained them as fortunate. Those were the days when 'austerity' indicated living from hand to mouth, not needing to choose a standard 50in flat screen TV, rather of a 65in OLED Ultra design, and only being able to pay for an iPhone 14 rather than the most recent all-singing, all-dancing AI variation.

Child hardship was genuine, bread-and-dripping, holes-in-your-shoes things, not dining on Deliveroo and unwillingly using last season's Nike trainers.

Until the digital/social media transformation, kids acquired their understanding primarily from books, composes Littlejohn

In the 1950s, kids experienced genuine hardship, not the hardship of ambition and creativity which blights this generation, through no fault of their own. Today, kids live by means of their cellphones, instead of wandering free and experiencing life to the complete.

Until the digital/social media transformation, kids gained their understanding primarily from books. Yes, TV played a huge function, as did the movies, but nowhere near the dominance of TikTok and other apps providing instant satisfaction in byte-sized chunks.

And how can squinting at the most current CGI generated blockbuster on a cellphone a few inches wide ever compare to the type of old-school, big screen, Technicolor and Cinemascope, best-out-of-Hollywood experience commemorated at the Cinema Museum?

It can't. Just as the best pictures are stated to be on the radio, even much better pictures can be found in the printed word.

One of the most dismal things I have actually read just recently was the author Anthony Horowitz bemoaning the reality that his 300-page books are far too long to engage the shorter attention periods these days's kids.

Not surprising that kid, and indeed adult, literacy levels have plunged amazingly. All this has added to the shocking discovery that white, working class pupils - kids in particular - are being left behind. Even Labour's Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has actually been required to admit they have been 'betrayed' by the modern schools system.

They struggle with an absence of parental participation and consequent paucity of goal. The white, working class boy in George Layton's stories certainly didn't suffer any adult overlook from his aggressive mum. Nor did he lack imagination or goal.

Education was the escape of . It produced eloquent wordsmiths like George, in post-war Bradford - and our own dear Keith Waterhouse, late of this parish, who grew up in hardship in neighboring pre-war Leeds.

Literacy is the best gift we can bestow on any kid. My grannies taught me to check out before I went to school, setting me on the early roadway to a satisfying profession at the wordface instead of the relative drudgery of the office.

George Layton is thinking about taking his one-man show on the road, to little provincial theatres. I've got a better concept.

If the Education Secretary wishes to reverse the betrayal of white, working class kids she could begin by getting the phone and inviting George to visit schools, reading from his narratives.

I truthfully think that if they could be convinced to search for from their mobiles for an hour, they 'd be enthralled and influenced by the adventures of a young boy not that various to them, despite the range in years.

You never ever understand, there may even be another Charlie Chaplin among them.

When they're not tasering one-legged 92-year-old men or nicking individuals for publishing hurty words on the internet, the cops are significantly taking 2nd tasks to supplement their income.

Some are working as painters and decorators, others as scaffolders nand delivery drivers. More intriguingly, sidelines also consist of a DJ (PC Hammer, anybody?) and a reiki trainer, whatever that is.

My favourites are beekeeper and kickboxing coach, although the copper running a tea shop needs to take the biscuit.

It's likewise reported that some officers are working as grocery store checkout assistants. I don't suppose there's any danger of them nicking a few shoplifters.

Mind how you go.

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Couple in their 70s who purchased a baby from a complete stranger are self-centered in the extreme

First the frogs, now the octopuses The illegal migrant armada crossing the Channel daily may end up being the least of our issues. We now discover that a fleet of foreign octopuses from the Med is devouring crab stocks off the coast of Devon and Cornwall and threatening to put regional anglers out of business.

It's bad enough French trawlers hoovering up our fish without migrant molluscs assisting themselves to what's left.

We're also told that parakeets from India and Pakistan are an 'unstoppable invasive species' having actually gotten away into the wild and are colonising cities as far afield as Plymouth and Aberdeen. No doubt we'll be putting them up in the closest Holiday Inn soon.

Which's before I get to the buzzard that's been dive-bombing kids in a school playground in Romford, Essex. Where the hell did that come from?

We've got enough difficulty with home-grown Stuka-style pigeons without importing kamikaze buzzards.

Take Labour's 'aspiration' to invest a pathetic 3 percent of GDP on defence by the year 2525 with a shovel-load of Maldon's finest. The method Rachel From Complaints is taxing the economy to death, there won't be any GDP left in a couple of years' time. And three per cent of things all is still stuff all.

AN NHS cosmetic surgeon who compared Islamist terrorists to the Nazis has actually been struck off. If he 'd said the exact same about those people who want to leave the European yuman rites convention, Surkeir would have made him Chief law officer.

Having just recently claimed that the initial ancient Britons were black, the woke deconstructionists now allege the Vikings were Muslims. Don't these individuals ever take a day off?