[Media:http://www.freemosquitoringtone.org/tones/8000.mp3]

Well, following on from a recent comment, I felt I should revise my opinions on this outrageous invention, after my circumstances have changed. My conclusion is still the same: the mosquito should buzz off. However, I can further appreciate the anxieties of many shop owners and residents.

Within your local communities, you can always recognise the same old faces: there’s the local tramp, the local druggies, the local drunks, and so on. Twydall is no different, and working in a convenience store as I do, you quickly get used to regular customers, regular routines and regular nuisances.

Without much difficulty, I could reel off a list of regular (and semi-regular) customers. I’m not going to, as that would probably be a step too far, but I will say this: amongst our regular, semi-regular and one-off customers are a diverse range of ages, ethnicities and backgrounds. I’ve even served a couple of Medway Councillors over the past couple of weeks (not from the same party, I might add, but both with interests in Twydall).

The customs are simple: many regular customers will always ask for the same thing (20 Raffles, half a bottle of Scotch, 10 Hamlet Miniatures, a bottle of Captain Morgan etc.) and you know exactly what you are going to have to reach for before the customer asks. Then there’s the No ID No Sale policy – which is strictly enforced! Working on a Saturday evening as I do, there is nothing unusual about people buying alcohol. If someone looks under 21, we ask for ID, if they can’t show any, we refuse the sale. The usual excuse is “I’ve left it in the car”, before darting down the road to the other convenience store, where they know they stand a better chance of being served alcohol or tobacco products.

In his comment, matt said about the parents who ” who give [the teenagers] the booze”. Almost opposite me is a park, and we are friends with the family which has the misfortune of backing on to the park. Even tonight we were discussing age-related sales, and how teenagers who are obviously underage have alcohol in bags which have been supplied by the other convenience store (big hint as to where they got them!). Then the police come along and pour the alcohol away, yet little action is taken against said convenience store, which is one thing which angers me a lot.

The other regular thing you get used to are the local youths, hanging around the Green because there is “nothing else to do”. For a start, that’s a load of rubbish – there are actually many great facilities in Medway, yet many kids would rather hang around in gangs, intimidating people and being a nuisance (after all, they can’t get fags and booze from their youth club, can they?!).

I’ll agree: something needs to be done! Gangs of youths cannot be allowed to rule the streets and commit such crimes so openly and get away with them so easily. However, I reiterate: the Mosquito is not the answer!

The mosquito not only torments the unruly kids, but also violates the human rights of law-abiding youths such as myself and a vast majority of the teenage population and even babies and small children. It is immoral and should be illegal! There is no excuse for subjecting the majority to such a tortuous deterrent for the sake of keeping away a minority! Even the inventor is concerned by the way the device is currently used.

I’m not going to deny that there is a problem – I have seen first-hand that there is a problem – but the Mosquito is an abomination and should not even be considered as a possible solution, yet alone utilised as such!

One-by-one Conservative MPs rightly lined up to oppose the ridiculous suggestion by Mrs Morgan, wife to the Welsh First Minister Rhodri Morgan. Even the UK Youth Parliament seems to oppose the idea, casting it aside when they voted on the three most important issues to campaign on last month. And, as much as I would have loved to have been able to vote in the local elections last year, most people of my age aren’t very politically aware and the quality of the democratic outcome would, in my opinion, have decreased immeasurably, if, the new voters, even bothered to turn out to vote!

There is a great quote from popular culture that goes something along the lines of this: “with great power comes great responsibility”. This was echoed in the Parliamentary debate by Eleanor Laing, who said “whenever we create a right, there must be a corresponding responsibility!”.

By giving people the right to vote, we are also conferring on them the burden of the responsibility to vote. I argue that 16 and 17-year-olds are gradually given plenty of responsibilities as they move on through life and grow up. It is not right to pile on all those responsibilities at once. Children of younger age groups have to be protected and 16 and 17-year-olds still have to be nurtured and helped along the way while they gradually make the transition from childhood to adulthood.

Taking a look at Mrs Morgan’s unhealthy majority of 1146, opinion polling and recent election results, one could be forgiven for thinking that this is nothing more than a shameless attempt to win the vote for 16- and 17-year olds purely to win the votes of 16- and 17-year olds to keep her seat.

Not only is it discrimatory towards teenagers and infringes their basic human rights, but it is wildly unfair to the majority of youths who are not unruly, and also to younger children and babies who also have to suffer the following sound:

[Media:http://www.freemosquitoringtone.org/tones/8000.mp3]

Has the government really lost the plot? The one single time they could get something right, intervene and stop this torture, they run a mile and refuse to make the use of the device, which is programmed at a frequency which only people under 25 can hear, illegal.

The England Children’s Commissioner launched a campaign to ban the use of the device using the name “Buzz Off”. “These devices are indiscriminate and target all children and young people, including babies, regardless of whether they are behaving or misbehaving. The use of measures such as these are simply demonising children and young people, creating a dangerous and widening divide between the young and the old.”

I don’t know what’s more worrying, the fact that the government refused to listen to the Children’s Commissioner, or that when the sound gets to 18.5kHz, the frequency at which the Mosquito is operated, I can no longer hear it!

Whilst the politicians were rightfully stating that we young people are not as bad as the media are trying to make us out to be, the public at large allowed themselves to be spoon-fed the anti-youth propoganda currently being regurgitated after attacks from the odd youth here and there. Try this quote, for example:

“Children nowadays love luxury, have bad manners, contempt for authority, disrespect for elders.”

It sounds very much like a damning indictment of today’s youth, doesn’t it? I’d be inclined to agree, if it weren’t said by the Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, who died in the fourth century BC. The problems with some young people are not new, and most of those feeding on the vile statements in the media forget that they were our age once, and that some of them were exactly the same.

Which brings me on to my friend. He isn’t exactly the sort of person who could hurt a fly (believe me, I’ve seen him try), let alone a fully-grown woman. So what made her cross the road when he, on his own, just happened to be walking in her direction? Why does the media make everyone think the worst of our Country’s future, and why do people believe their utter nonsense?

I, unfortunately, cannot give an answer. But one day, I fear, I will end up being like that middle-aged woman, crossing the road because (shock horror!) a teenager happens to be walking towards me. It is a never-ending cycle, and something needs to be done sooner, rather than later, to cut the fear stirred up by the media – fear that was not so prominent just a Century ago.