Competition No 3688

Set by Lew Bellringle on 2 July

We wanted the "potentially damaging" effects on children of childhood myths.

Report by Ms de Meaner

I liked the frank Albert Black on the childhood myth that wanking makes you go blind, although I was thinking of something more innocent at first glance. I am awarding hon menshes to Peter Lyon for his tooth fairy ("Is a child to believe that later in life, after, say, a heart bypass operation, a gleaming Audi will be waiting at the hospital door?"), Will Bellenger for his Easter bunny ("The child is left with the puzzle: which came first, the bunny or the egg?") and Anne Du Croz for Santa (". . . sexual satisfaction from stroking ladies' hose"). I also found the ironic entries (I hope they were ironic) where the entrant "appeared" to believe in monsters and tooth fairies amusing. £20 to the winners; the vouchers go to Frank Murray.

Consider the physical and aerodynamic impossibility of a stork transporting a baby. Can there be any doubt that the decline of Britain, as a force in world aviation, is due in no small measure to the pernicious influence of this myth? The average baby weighs about 7lbs, while the neck of a stork extends about 18 inches from its centre of gravity. This means that the stork, in flight, will have to resist a downward pitching movement of 10.5ft/lbs. If, for simplicity, we assume this is the first arrival of the new year, it is equivalent to asking a Scotsman, with one arm behind his back, to hold a 5lb haggis at arm's length and dance a Highland fling for whatever length of time it takes for a baby to be delivered. This is the staggering illusion that is depriving us of the potential Brabazons, de Havillands, Wallises and Whittles we need for the new supersonic era.

The authorities at Farnborough, on their next big day, could do worse than attempt to simulate, for the general public, a stork and baby fly-past and deliver us, once and for all, from this inhibiting canard.

Frank Murray

Juvenile introduction into commercial transactions via the tooth fairy is damaging to the quality of socio-moral decisions made in later life and the critical thought processes required for problem-solving, particularly in situations necessitating leadership skills and whole-task awareness. This is not the inculcation of a something-for-nothing philosophy, corrosive though that is. Far worse, it lays the foundation for body-parts trade, underpinning sales of blood, say, or kidneys and other organs, as well as manifold aspects of sexual prostitution. It is the belief that everything has its price. An associated outcome is the abdication of responsibility for dealing with bodily detritus at a time when waste disposal is a major issue for industrialised nations, and for tourists to ecologically sensitive third-world countries. The infantile notion that one can hide it away, go to sleep, and that it will have disappeared in the morning is irresponsible, even before this hypernaive attitude is reinforced by financial reward. It also emphasises the gender stereotyping that assigns female roles to those who clear up waste and bodily effluent, with implications for future decision-making in employment and equal opportunities legislation.

D A Prince

It strains credulity that in this day and age we would allow children to believe that there are monsters under their beds. After all, how much ground clearance exists under there? Forty-five centimetres at best. So, alternatively, a child is asked to believe that an extremely short beast is ready to jump out and attack, or that the beast is lying prone, face down amidst the dust bunnies, from whence it must slither itself out, stand, and pounce. How can we ask a child to be frightened of a monster who is asked to make such an awkward attack? I propose we no longer lie to our children. We must throw back our shoulders, clear our throats, and tell them the pure, unvarnished truth. The monsters are standing behind the closet door.

Bruce W Alter

Dabbling in the occult for the sake of 50p is simply not worth the risk, according to neoclassical economic theory. The laws of supply and demand and diminishing marginal utility apply as much in Fairyland as in any other market. Tooth fairies are suffering the effects of inflation and competition, not to mention globalisation. Compound this with political and economic marginalisation and disenfranchisement in a predominantly spritist and anthropocentric society - fairies are virtually invisible in public life - and it is no wonder that they are alienated. Successive governments have covered up the problem (Pilger, 1999), but the evidence is conclusive. None of this is new, of course. From Icarus, whose wings famously caught one thermal too many, to the heyday of Oberon and Titania's reign, fairies were underestimated, ridiculed, maligned. Modern scholarship (Silverman, 2001) reveals how the original folio of A Midsummer Night's Dream was a tragedy, with Titania and Oberon portrayed as vindictive goblins who made the Macbeths look like the Waltons. Nothing could be further from the truth, of course, but if the social exclusion and exploitation of fairies is not addressed, they will simply refuse to cough up, leaving teeth under pillows and children traumatised.

David Silverman

No 3691 Set by Margaret Rogers

Roy Hattersley has talked of supporting a movement to "rescue Labour for democratic socialism", to be called "Real Labour" (after "Real Beer"). Can we have suggestions for suitably named pubs to act as venues for Real Labour meetings, with descriptions of decor, music and social activities.

Max 200 words to be in by 2 August (to appear in the issue dated 13 August).

E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk

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