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 | Your lettersSunday February 3, 2008 The Observer The dangers of trivialising suicide In her article 'Let's not tell our children there's a place called "Suicide Town"' (Opinion, last week), Barbara Ellen describes Bridgend as 'run-down, cut-off and hardly a mecca of excitement and job opportunity'. Just off the M4, half-way between Swansea and Cardiff, well served by public transport, you could hardly say that Bridgend is 'cut off'. It may have been run-down, but not any more. The regeneration of the town centre is going well. With regard to 'excitement', it is close to the sea, the mountains, beautiful countryside, has good shopping facilities, a strong music scene, good youth facilities... The comment on job opportunity may be closer to the truth. In the past few years, reports of firm closures seem to hit the local news regularly. I have a 19-year-old son. He says he is fed up hearing about the internet being blamed for these suicides. He says it is as though people need to find excuses to avoid talking about the real problem. In his mind, the reasons are pressures at home, at school, exams, employment pressures, pressures in their social lives - problems often exacerbated by a dependence on alcohol, condoned or even encouraged by parents and society generally. He should know. He too lost a friend last year. His death did not make the headlines, thank God. By sensationalising these suicides, there is a danger of trivialising them. One suicide is as painful as 13. Could we have done more to support all those young people? Why was their sense of self-worth lacking? What male role-models have they had in their lives? We could begin by opening the dialogue. Adults are often quick to judge youngsters without really knowing what they are made of inside. Cheerleading for boys too, please Most of the news about PE for girls is good ('"Uncool" gym kit puts girls off school sport', News, last week). Miniskirts out, tracksuit bottoms in: splendid. See-through white Aertex out - high time too. Netball out; boxercise and Taekwondo in - er, what's Taekwondo exactly? - never mind, it has to be more fun than netball. But cheerleading? This is good for teenage girls' self-esteem? Which part? The baton-twirling? The pom-poms? The leering dads? Or being a side-show to the main event, a game played by the boys? Perhaps I am unduly pessimistic. Perhaps what is really planned is equal opportunities cheerleading - where the girls cheer for the boys, and the boys - complete with Boyzillians and thongs - cheer for the girls. Business class only at Heathrow The government insists that Heathrow is essential to the economic prosperity of the country because of its importance to business and trade. That suggests an obvious solution. Instead of simply bowing to uncontrolled demand, the most effective use should be made by concentrating its use on meeting business demand. Short international and domestic flights should be phased out, and rail links improved. Flight numbers could be reduced substantially below the current 480,000. What a contrast to the planned chaos of a 50 per cent increase in traffic, let alone the mad sequence of extra terminals leading to more runways - each accompanied by an additional lane on the M25 and escalation in congestion and pollution. Thank you for the space given in last Sunday's paper to the airport expansion plans ('Britain's new eco battle', Focus). I think your correspondents came down against, though this may be wishful thinking. However, on the front page you carried an advertisement for '2 million seats' from a budget airline. Surely there is an irony here? What Tebbit doesn't know The tragedy of Norman Tebbit is that, considering the terrible ordeal that he and his wife suffered in 1984, he remains a man with utterly no humanity or generosity of spirit at all ('This much I know', Observer Magazine, 27 January). He who hesitates gains time Andrew Rawnsley ('Gordon Brown's unfortunate urge to split the difference, Comment, last week) overlooks the fact Gordon Brown is merely following Mrs Thatcher's dictum: 'One thing I have learned in politics is never to make a decision until you absolutely have to.' Catherine Bennett's article on Richard Branson, 'Why is anyone fooled by the smile of this slick operator?' (Comment, last week) missed the point. Branson is the establishment and always has been. It has been convention, not the establishment, that he has challenged and it is Gordon Brown who is trying to fit in. Branson has always been Lord King in the making. If the public were not so impressionable they would have seen though him at the outset as a marketing expert and myth-maker. Minority view of Labour Rarely have I read such tripe masquerading as political analysis as James Purnell's comments in 'Brown Mark II' (Focus, last week). If it was meant to represent how the bulk of the Labour party views our prospects, it would explain many of our problems, from lower membership to a shortage of funds. Happily, of course, it does not. It merely reflects the specious chatter of small, London-based circles with little to offer other than yet more empty rhetoric about presentation. The degree of naivety revealed is concerning. Purnell is quoted as saying: 'The mistake [Cameron and his team] make [is] they think [New Labour] was about, "You keep the policies the same, but you present them in a more palatable way." But actually it was, "You rethink fundamentally your policy approach - and then communicate it." If you look at their policy framework, it is the same policies but in a different language.' This is completely baffling. It's tautology. If this is the best a government minister can do, it bodes ill. But then, as Nicholas Watt commented: 'Maybe the veterans will always grumble.' No more naked chefs Much as I admire Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, was it really necessary for him to remove his pants for the front cover of last week's Observer Food Magazine Write to us | |||||||||||||||||
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