Dumb and Dumber

They've been saying for a while that society is being dumbed down. It hasn't really affected me up until now. I don't really have a lot to do with modern society, if I can help it.

However, I went to the weekly pop quiz at the Prom last night. This quiz, quite rightly, has legendary status in Bristol. But I haven't been for a while and I got quite a shock last night. It's now billed as a "pop and showbiz" quiz and the room was full of "youngsters" instead of the usual clutch of middle aged men with bald patches, Mott the Hoople T-shirts and pints of real ale.

I'm now expected to know about JLS and their own brand of condoms, rather than Van Halen and their infamous brown M&Ms rider clause; about Pixie Lott not the Pixies; about X Factor instead of Generation X.

OK, maybe I should have known that the photo in the picture round was Paula Radcliffe, not Madonna! (But, to be fair, what's she got to do with showbiz?)

Separated at Birth?

Don't get me wrong, it's great to see the Prom busy on a Tuesday night and people out enjoying themselves instead of being sat in front of the TV. The Prom is a Gloucester Road institution and rightly so. It's just that part of me is sad to see the passing of one my life's last bastions of middle aged curmudgeonliness.