They're making a few changes to Enid Blyton's Famous Five stories so that modern children can relate to them.
"Well, it's the summer holidays at last!" said Julian. "And we've got weeks ahead of us sitting in the basement with the curtains drawn, playing computer games."
Suddenly the door burst open. "Listen everyone!" exclaimed Anne. "Timmy just spotted some smugglers sailing out to the island! Let's go and investigate."
"Shut up Anne, and get out of the way of the screen. And tell Mum to put some more pizzas in the microwave, I'm on level 7 of Washington Sniper 2002."
The British Medical Association has just issued a terrifying report on the health of today's teenagers. They are eating too much junk food, they smoke, they have more sexually transmitted diseases and they drink too much alcohol. And the problem is that if they're doing all this in their teens, what possible motivation is there for them to go to university? No wonder they're all depressed; all they need now is the prospect of a big debt around their neck to really finish them off.
The report reveals our adolescents to be the most obese generation of Britons ever; so in an attempt to cheer them up a bit the government proposed giving them the vote at 16, but then spoilt it by adding: "That's if you can fit inside the polling booths, you big fat lardy-pants".
Obesity is becoming so normal that kids are being teased in the playground for not being fat. Now visiting aunties say: "Aah, hasn't he grown, I remember him when he was only this wide". Obviously fizzy drinks and fatty junk food are a major factor is this trend; when asked what was their last meal many kids admitted they'd just had a Big Mac, double fries and a large Coke, and were planning to have the same again at lunchtime. Coca-Cola insist that they do not target children under 12 in their advertising; no, they just sponsored the charts because Top of the Pops is very popular with the over-60s. (Apparently the Antiques Roadshow was already sponsored by Pepsi Max.) Why can't they find a drink more suitable for young children - the sponsor they have for the Carling Cup, for example?
If the foods that are making our children overweight are going to be allowed to advertise, they should at least be a bit more honest about it. The Burger King advert could change its strapline to "Heart disease? You got it!" Then a chronically overweight man could roll around on the ground unable to get up, with a cheery voiceover chortling: "You know when you've been Tango-ed!"
The other problem for today's young people is lack of physical activity. They need healthy sporting role models who are fit and active, like that Gary Lineker from the Walkers crisps adverts. Sport is now something to be watched on cable, unless it's on Channel 117, when frankly it's just too much effort to press three buttons on the remote control.
When we were children we got a lot more exercise getting up off the sofa and walking across the room to change channels. And there was no children's TV all through the school holidays, so we sat there staring blankly at Pebble Mill at One instead. Occasionally we might have gone off and played on our own outside, but now, in Tony Blair's nanny state, we are not allowed to play in the street anymore apparently, just because it's A412(M).
Parents are driving their children to obesity, because they are driving them to school and to piano lessons and to games workshop. Parents need to be encouraged to let their children run off and play on their own for a bit. And obviously the best way to achieve this is for the newspapers to spend weeks obsessing over every grisly detail of the Ian Huntley trial.
The part of the BMA's report with which I have a problem is the confident assertion that today's adolescents are the most depressed young people ever.
More unhappy than a generation that lost fathers and brothers in the trenches? Or a generation that was evacuated or bombed? Yup, today's teenagers are suffering from far greater depression because McDonald's have started doing salads.
The fact that the fast food giants are suddenly on the defensive shows that attitudes to healthy eating may be changing. There's been talk of the government forcing fatty foods to carry health warnings, and perhaps the time is right for this. Nothing too alarmist, just something like: "Eat this burger and die, yer fat walrus!" or "Warning, these heart-attack inducing hot dogs are made from mashed up old donkey bollocks."
Kids would run a mile. Or rather their parents would drive them.
