‘It’s official

‘Sometimes doing nothing is kinder and actually more difficult’ (Image: PA)Hallelujah!About time. And there’s more. Doctors caring for children who are worried about their gender have been told that it’s not a “neutral act” to help them transition by using their preferred pronouns or a different name. The draft guidelines also say medics should “carefully explore” all underlying health problems before any action is taken.Five years ago the now-defunct Tavistock Gender Clinic claimed that the number of children referred to its Gender Identity Development Service had risen by 2,500 per cent in the previous decade.That’s a figure which should have set alarm bells ringing. Estimates put the percentage of the population which is trans or non-binary at a minuscule 0.33 per cent. How do you account for this soaring number of referrals? Is it something in the water or is it – to put it bluntly – a fashion?The modern “child-centred” approach to all aspects of child care, whether its education or safeguarding, is basically driven by the idea that the child is always right. “Listen to the children” is the mantra.And of course, we must listen to children. All manner of horrors have been visited on children to whom nobody listened. But there’s a big difference between listening and indulging.The phrase “it’s just a phase” was once more popular than it is now. People used it to reassure other parents that their out-of-control offspring wasn’t going to turn into a psychopath.Anyone with first-hand experience of how a monosyllabic teenage boy can transform into a model citizen knows that “it’s just a phase” gets you through the darker days.But “it’s just a phase” can also sound unfeeling and dismissive, making light of a child’s very real concerns. Yet children really do go through phases.Many of these phases are influenced by what their friends are doing because all children like to belong, to be part of a gang, to imitate the other kids. It can mean something as trivial as getting the right kind of shoes but it can also mean something much more serious.And at the moment – because it is so high profile and, yes, fashionable – it increasingly means deciding they’re trans. The job for the parent is to listen sympathetically, but not necessarily to act.Sometimes doing nothing is kinder and actually more difficult than throwing the kitchen sink at a problem. A little “benign neglect” can be more effective than fussing, making appointments and busily polishing your good-parent credentials.”Waiting and seeing” does not mean you are abdicating your responsibility. It means you are not acting on every one of your child’s whims and passing obsessions.Because – the chances are – it’s just a “phase”. ‘Why go to a live event if you spend all your time looking at it through your phone?’ (Image: Getty)One benefit of the trans movement is that at least children are learning about parts of speech.A few years ago you’d have been lucky to find many children who could tell you what a pronoun is. Now they all can. If only we could do the same for adverbs, adjectives, prepositions and conjunctions.A Phone Free ShowIncreasingly any sort of performance – theatre, concert, even the cinema – is blighted by mobile phones. What is wrong with people? Why go to a live event if you spend all your time looking at it through the camera on your phone?Why go to a live event if you spend the evening scrolling through your Twitter feed or selecting a takeaway for later?Apart from anything, mobile phone morons make me so angry that it spoils any pleasure in the performance.I want to grab their phones and stamp on them. The phones not the people. Oh alright… the phones AND the people.So I was pleased to find when I bought tickets to see Bob Dylan last week that the event was a “Phone Free Show”.Quite a number of artists are insisting on this and not just because they don’t want to see pirated recordings on social media. “It’s very distracting”, said Bonnie Raitt who always asks fans to put away their phones: “It’s hard for me to connect emotionally – it’s a sacred space between me and the audience.”A Phone Free Show entails having your mobile put in a locked pouch which you keep with you throughout the evening. If you can’t resist checking your emails then you can go to a designated Phone Use Area and release your instrument.It was wonderful seeing Dylan without a forest of glaring phones getting in the way – like we used to watch him in the 1970s. Let’s hope Phone Free Shows become the norm.Nuisance cold calls will continueIn life one thing is certain, nuisance cold calls will continue, come what may. I get very bored with being asked to answer a “few simple questions” or provide the details of my loft insulation to a complete stranger.It’s a positive relief when you hear them reading from a new script.Last week’s was a hoot. “Hello”, I said. “Hello”, said the voice, as if speaking from a submarine or perhaps a faraway galaxy, “Can I speak to the man of the house?”Now that’s a phrase I haven’t heard for a few decades. ‘The BBC’s impartiality is the bedrock of its sacred role as the nation’s broadcaster’ (Image: PA)”I’m probably breaking some sort of terrible due impartiality rule by giggling,” said Martine Croxall presenting the BBC TV show The Papers – her glee caused by Boris Johnson’s announcement last week that he was not standing for Prime Minister.Yes Martine, you were breaking a rule.The BBC’s impartiality is the bedrock of its sacred role as the nation’s broadcaster.Broadcasters flout what you call these “terrible” rules at their peril and should never be seen to laugh at them. Say what you like once you’re off air, but until then remember the standards that the BBC has sought to maintain for a century And though we criticise it like mad, for the most part it has succeeded.Sad to read that the “dirtiest man in the world” has died a few months after being persuaded to take a shower by his neighbours. This 94-year-old Iranian gent hadn’t washed for 67 years in the belief that contact with soap and water would be the death of him (as it turned out he was right). He smoked animal dung, ate raw roadkill and was in rude health.The least surprising detail of his unusual life is that “he never married”.Farewell Doc MartinSo, farewell Doc Martin. If you plan to watch the final episode of the ITV series on catch-up then I won’t tell you whether the Doc and his missus (Martin Clunes and Caroline Catz) actually do up sticks and move from Cornwall to London.Though as fans of this 18-year series know (18 years!) Doc’s career plans are always thwarted by some clifftop medical drama which requires his immediate attention.I’ll miss it because in a world of edgy drama Doc Martin has been a wonderful escape from reality, not because Portwenn’s GP has a blood phobia but because he still does house calls.