SERIOUS SIDE OF SOCIAL PRESSURE ON STUDENTS 'TO HAVE FUN'

IT'S Freshers' season and thousands of young people are going through their orientation and coming to terms with leaving home for the first time.

I saw them with my own eyes as I drove home from Leeds last Monday morning.

The streets were bursting to the seams with youngsters in their fashionable clobber trying to make sense of their new landscape.

They were all wandering around like over-grown toddlers who have been abandoned, looking for their mummies, carrying big bags and small smiles.

Then I spotted loads of protesters stabbing brightly coloured boards into the air. But they weren't protesters at all: turns out it was club promoters with banners, flyering the crowds at 9am in the morning.

I was stunned. All the way along the busy university campus area there were young girls in bikinis drinking out of coconut shells and giving out leaflets about the latest "beach bar" club night.

On one street corner, a young bloke was standing on a small armoured tank waving a plastic machine gun.

Our car slowed down in early morning traffic.

"That's a bit mental don't you think?" I asked my husband as I pointed out the gun-toting student.

"You need to chill out. That's young people having fun," my husband said with a sarcastic tone. "We like The Archers on Radio 4 and they like climbing on tanks and showing off their bums: it's an age thing. Remember when I used to do that?"

The car then stopped at the traffic lights and husband and I stared at the scene.

There were young females in swimsuits who climbed up on the tank and started dancing with the gun-waving boy; one was slugging pink bubblegum-coloured liquid from a giant balloon cocktail glass.

They looked a bit cold and tired, but who am I to hang out of a car window and tell young folks to pop on a cardigan when gun-waving and tank-dancing is going on?

I was confused as to why there was a huge nightclub promo-event at this time in the morning.

Husband said: "It's Freshers' Week. Get them in, get them drunk and get them to spend their grant,"

"Really?" I naively asked.

"Yes, it's a huge business; every local bar vies for the student's cash."

You see I never went to Uni; I never got to dress in a hoola-hoola skirt, live in a bedsit, drink purple cocktails or study anything.

I missed out on so much. Tank-dancing and flag-waving could have been my thing.

But there seems to be a huge pressure on these fresh young kids leaving home and embarking on a new life and education.

Living for the first time in new surroundings, learning to make sausage casseroles and eking out a budget that will cover shoes, books, drink and burgers all whilst being encouraged to get "boozed up" in-between times.

I asked my daughter Ashley, did she get all this stuff to "go mad, get drunk, get laid and get into a bikini", when she started Uni?

She answered: "No, I disagree with Freshers' Week. It's an excuse for really young people to get pissed up and then the older students to take advantage of them. It's a bit like watching young gazelles being hunted, chased and slaughtered by vicious hungry hyenas."

I think that's a rather strong view on the socialising of students.

I am sure both sexes go mad and take advantage of each other. The girls can just be as bad as the boys surely?

Nevertheless, I am glad my daughter isn't standing on a tank in a bikini at 9am on a city street, whilst chugging down a pink cocktail as she prepares to get a degree.

SO I'M DRESSED FOR SUCCESS BUT ONLY IN A CHAV-TASTIC WORLD

IN Leicester last week, husband and I decided to go for some dinner before I went on stage. There was a bar that looked nice and their menu looked really tasty.

I fancied the sword fish and salad and then I noticed another sign that caught my eye.

There was a list that stated you could not come in if you were wearing a list of clothes from these brands:

Kappa
Hackett
Burberry
Aquascutum
Stone Island
Henri Lloyd

Apparently these clothing lines elevate your street status from well-dressed woman to top chav-tastic pub pest.

I was wearing an Aquascutum jacket from their winter collection in 2002 .

Who would have thought my woolly item carried such contention?

Being a chav wasn't something I aspired to when I bought that jacket in Harrods five years ago. I thought I looked really respectable and possibly posh!

BAGGING A HERO IN LUGGAGE ALERT

I FLEW from Glasgow to Southampton last Thursday with Flybe. Not only did it cancel my 9am flight and change it to 2pm, but it lost my bag in the process.

I don't know how a flight that small could lose baggage; the aeroplane is the size of a skateboard.

On my arrival in Southampton and on finding out my bag had disappeared, I called my good mate and all-round airport hero, John Smeaton, who is back working in Glasgow.

"Can you find my bag? Flybe have lost it and I am on stage tonight and I look like a pikey," I said as I tried to buy a new pair of knickers and a toothbrush in a Southampton shop. John assured me he was literally "on the case".

The luggage did safely arrive on the Friday around midday and it had a wee sticker on the side saying "Smeato!"

Thanks, John, you are my hero.

HOLIDAY COMFORTS

"LET'S go camping!" my husband declared last week.

"Let's not," I said. "Let's go stay in a beautiful hotel and get other people to do the cleaning."

My husband thinks that because we have a tent and camping gear from my Glastonbury trips, we must use it occasionally. I reminded him we also have window-cleaning equipment and a wallpapering table; we could also use that if he desired.

I am not going camping; the countryside confuses me. I once frightened horses when I touched an electric fence and screamed so loudly they bolted and one ran into a tree. It looked injured and a farmer threw me off his land.

Nettles sting me, bees attack me, midges bite me and I discovered sheep don't like being stroked. Show me a five-star tent with a ready-made bed, a butler, a full menu and hot bathing facilities with marble toilets and I am there.