childpapers

Why is that we find children delightful.

Even I do, sometimes, but with severe doubts.

I ask because I have beside me two noisy children, one of whom is reading Thomas the Tank Engine aloud, very very loudly. The ignorant selfish father has been on the phone for ages, clearly hardly able to hear what is being said to him. He makes no attempt to socialise them.

 He's gone to get another cup of tea (and left them generating noise): a fact he had to shout at them to make them hear.

Dismayed that they'll be here polluting my ears with their crap for some time, I told the loud reader to be quiet. I used my best schoolmaster's voice, a voice I rarely use these days, and it has gone quiet. Well, the reader's gone quiet. The one who's just got out of the womb is making a noise; but he's too young to be susceptible to school masters' voices. It's gaffer tape or a sound proof cell for him.

I'm wondering if the reader is going to tell daddy that I told him to shut up; and, if so, if daddy is going to have words with me.

We'll see! I'm ready. But I hope not. I prefer not aggressing.

It occurs to me that children like these, and they could easily be seen as charming, will grow up to become versions of their father, or the hysterical wankers in the Olympic Stadia, making noise, talking bollocks, breeding.

In which case, all is not as it seems. We are looking at apparently solid ice which will actually let you drown; or the terribly sincere politician who has no intention of keeping his promises; or... well, I am sure you have your own comparisons.

I would make it a crime to beget a child and then not keep it under control.

He's back now and is saying ssssh. This sssh comes from the same impulse that has people praying when things go wrong. It gives the brain something to do without utilising it.

With so many people in the world, the only reason for making children must be for the pleasure it gives the parents. We can keep the machines going on the labour of the mistakes.

The rest of us don't need the noisy little brats. So why should we put up with their noise pollution? (We have changing rooms for them; why not silencing rooms?) Those who want children should surely be willing to keep them to themselves. I have no objection to consenting adults, in privacy, deriving pleasure from half-formed bipeds.

Bad parents are not much different to persistently invasive drunks, bad neighbours, thieves, bullies and general tosspots.

With this in mind, my laboratory staff are endeavouring to develop a humane but effective childpaper. Similar to flypaper, it will be produced and sold cheaply to be stretched across places where children are likely to move about freely. Once on the paper, they will be unable to free themselves without assistance. A soporific additive will take care of the inevitablke screaming. I imagine it being used in public places (WARNING childpaper has been deployed in this establishment). The versions for public use will only be rendered non-adhesive by those with the correct antidote, for which one might charge a hefty price which may act as a deterrent. We could enhance the process with a three-sticks-and-your-stuck rule, records being kept on the parents' licence to breed.

Children not released will eventually become still, as their cousins, the bluebottle and the wasp, eventually stop buzzing and struggling. For the generality of the population there will be the pleasure of seeing justice done. For the world at large there will be the restoration of some peace.

Wider applications of variations on the paper, including torypaper and tosserpaper, are envisaged.