Dib, Dib, Dib.....Knob, Knob, Knob

"....Unt aftervards vee shall play at ze pinging-ponging unt zen shtick our vinky-wurts up each uzzers bottoms."


Wherever you look there is a sea of canvas. Camp fires are burning from Brixton to Baghdad, the khaki hordes are massing and, when dusk descends, that terrifying war cry fills the air................."ging, gang, gooly-gooly-gooly-gooly, watcha, ging, gang, goo....".


Yes, it's 100 years since no-one apparently batted an eyelid when closet homosexual Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell announced "I'm taking all these little boys away for the weekend and girls can't come".
Baden-Powell, the author of the marvellously twin-meaninged Scouting For Boys, first openly camped it up in 1907 on Brownsea Island, off Poole in Dorset, and the scouting movement was born. The centenary of that fateful event is being celebrated, not only in Britain but around the world, so much so that there has been an international run on bangers and beans, the sleeping bag industry is at breaking point and you can't find a ping-pong ball in the shops for love nor money.
Now this is where I have to highlight a slight split in the Pither camp. My brother is a scout leader and sees absolutely nothing wrong in a 53-year-old man donning shorts, playing games with a bunch of boys and then spending the night with them.

"So, tell me, how long have you been an ardent fascist?"................the scout leader asked her.

Me, I find it a tad unhealthy. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying our kid is a paedophile - he most definitely is not, and I'm sure there are two or three other blokes involved in scouting who aren't either, but.......well......just but......really.
Dodgy motives aside, you are still left questioning the mentality of men who like to spend their time away from work in the company of people whose only interests in life are masturbating and collecting football cards (Mrs Pither has just nudged me at this point and said "You're going to get in so much trouble!!")
I think my main problem with the scouts, apart from the fact that I have reached an age where the little bastards have started to help me across the road, is that they are a paramilitary organisation, what with the uniforms, the saluting, the ranks etc. Call me Mr Picky if you like but I think the militarisation of our young people is not an especially good thing. I know it was very popular in the late '30s but I don't see anyone running around celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Hitler Youth (except for Steve Cornell, a bloke I used to work with) - and there's a good reason for that.
You see, Baden-Powell had a couple of teensy issues when it came to being a role model for our children, namely he was a racist and a fascist who greatly admired Hitler and Mussolini. Would you buy a second-hand tent off a man like that?
It has often been argued, and I happen to agree, that all BP wanted to do with the scouts (when he wasn't buggering them rigid, that is) was to prepare the nation's youngest of young men for war. Having been a lifelong soldier he kinda liked war and thought it was character building. Me, I'm pretty much against it, what with all the genocide, blood and songs by the likes of Vera Lynn 'n' all.
You may not be surprised to learn that Pither was NOT a scout - or a cub or a badger or a Venezuelan tree vole or whatever they call members of the uber-youth wing. Learning to set fires and handle a knife were not high on my list of priorities when I was alive, although teenagers of today seem pretty keen on them, scouts or no scouts! I think I found it all a bit.......a bit........well, silly, really.
Now in my dotage I still can't see the scouts as harmless, although I have to admit to a great fondness for curvaceous, 40-something-year-old women bursting out of guides uniforms.

Now that DOES make me want to play tents!

Then again, that particular weakness of mine is in no way driven by a desire to see mid-life maidens learn all about field craft (well, not THAT kind of field craft).
No, to sum up, the scouts are a paramilitary organisation, dreamed up by a Nazi-loving racist and run by strange men short on long trousers and a proper social life. They've got to go.