I was about to make some excuse up when a giant brown lump floated past..."Now that sounds like adolescence. I'd only just finished when my boyfriend swam over and asked what I'd been doing. In return for these confessions they get an Our Price voucher. Most are about mis-timed farts or walking around all day with a used sanitary towel stuck to the back of your jumper, but one seemed truly horrendous: "I was at the beach with my boyfriend .. when I suddenly realised I needed the loo .. I decided to swim off into deeper water ...

The Fear of Infection." It could have been a Victorian pamphlet.Nothing is better for you than snogging Any other sexual activity is considered a bit iffy. This point was illustrated by an article on deflowerment: "Vicky, 16, lost her virginity when she was only 14 - and has regretted it ever since." The general feeling is that snogging should do. They make rather too much of snogging, in my opinion, even suggesting "potential snog days" in the horoscope section Or, alternatively, days when you're "hot". I was, apparently, on the 12th.Then there are the boys that feminism passed by. "Keith, 19, Surrey" says he likes "beast hunts": "We have an hour and a half to snog the ugliest girl possible. The girls are usually so thick they haven't got a clue that we're gagging behind their backs because they're so pig-ugly." A lesson in male sexuality, I guess, instantly followed by quizzes like "How deep is his Love?" and "Is your Body your buddy?" With titles such as Bliss and Sugar, jolly graphics and Day-Glo colours, it's really pretty amazing that the business of becoming horny, hairy and helpless can be handled with such hilarity.My fave find was "How embarrassing!" letters from readers about embarrassing, mostly scatological, episodes in their young lives. Conformism is their paramount aim, and it's all about clothes, nail polish and dates.

One date that went wrong was described in detail under the sub-headings, "The Dodgy Drink .. The False Friend .. The Savage Attack ... This turns out not to be masturbation but Princess Di stuff: "One day I started smashing my fist into a brick wall, fracturing my knuckles..." Apart from such fashionable behaviour, though, these mags could have been written in the Fifties. With relentless good cheer solutions are offered to every teenager's notion of a problem. Life Hassles, Sex Worries, Body Fears, you name it, it's still solvable if you're under 20 One girl complained of a lump on her vagina. Answer: "It sounds like the lump could well be your clitoris."There's a lot of self-harm.

Well, he would, wouldn't he - he doesn't want us eating Hogg. Actually, the mere mention of lamb spleens and spines on hourly news broadcasts this week has put me off eating mammals for life.Labour's total acceptance of the way the Government has handled the BSE crisis is weird. If ever an opposition party had an issue with a nice rounded handle on it, easy for carrying, it's the fact that the Tories have been blithely poisoning the populace for a decade. Labour MPs had their chance on the "last day of Parliament" (if only), when they could so easily have drowned Hogg out - he'd already lost his voice! - but instead they sat in respectful silence listening to the latest bullshit about meat. This has been the Labour Party's radical position from the start.