"Louise Bremner" <dame_zumari@yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:1gnspa4.160591icslo4oN%dame_zumari@yahoo.com...
> mr.sumo.snr. <llanelli14@SPAMSUCKBANANAS.yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Well (switching to country yokel accent)  we be a wee bit strange round
>> 'deez parts.  So I wouldn't be at all surprised if the watch-wearing 
>> thing
>> is a localized phenomenon.  BTW other little chestnuts include:  kids 
>> can't
>> carry money, ride on the train or buses alone or with friends before JHS,
>> can't enter shops - including konbini - without an adult, JH students 
>> can't
>> sleepover at a friend's house - with or without parental permission.  I
>> should also mention that last summer's vacation was approximately 21 days
>> for the local high-schools, and just three days longer for 70% of the 
>> local
>> elementary schools.  JHS kids got three extra days over that - but most 
>> of
>> them spent everyday, other than Obon, at school club.  The  first week of
>> vacation for students attending the top high school in the area was an
>> 'optional' summer school - which they had to attend or be marked down. 
>> This
>> school, since switching to the national five-day school week, now runs a
>> full Saturday timetable of revision classes - every week.
>>
>> Do I hear someone saying 'child labor'?
>
> You might be mis-hearing: "induced child rebellion"....
>
> (I wonder if the not-carrying-money thingie is a half-arsed way of
> preventing bullying?)
>

I agree with the logic - I'm just wondering what sort of bad parenting 
example I'm going to be setting when my son is old enough to be sent out to 
the local konbini to pick up a Snickers for his old man.  Vivid childhood 
memories include Sunday morning bike rides to the local shops (correction 
'shop' - this is England in the 1970's so only newsagents and pubs were open 
on Sundays) to pick up newspapers and milk.  Isn't that part of growing up? 
I even remember the sign on the front of the shop - "Groups of children NOT 
ALLOWED".  (looking back I'm assuming that they meant in the shop and 
weren't offering family planning advice - though since this location was in 
the West Midlands on a high-rise council estate where perhaps the word 
single-parent family was invented one cannot be too sure!.)

You'd get a small gang of ten year-olds waiting outside the shop parading in 
one by one to buy sweets and cola and the boys trying to grab a butchers at 
a top-shelf magazine on the pretense of purchasing a copy of 2000AD.  Of 
course there was none of this standing around reading the comic in the shop. 
About thirty seconds after picking up any magazine you'd get a disapproving 
"Are you going to buy that?" from the shop.

I could 'natsukashii' myself to death this afternoon.  I've got ELO's 
'Eldorado' blasting away (blame Heather Locklear) and I'm reading the Miami 
Vice broadcast schedule at http://www.axn.co.jp/miami/index.html  (the DVDs 
come out in February!!!).

--
jonathan