Forget the fashion police... call the perspective police!

by Deborah Taylor

Never mind the fashion police... just like puffball skirts they've had their day. Check out the newest justice force on the block!

There's a lot of disagreements in the world, I don't think anyone would argue with me on that. (Though I wouldn't be surprised if they did.) It's quite a big problem I think.

Take, for one example, my neighbours. Early this evening, I was enjoying the delights of a Charles Dickens novel when through the walls drifted, or rather hammered through uninvited, the shouts and screams of my arguing neighbours. Now, I'm not by nature a nosy person, but I just couldn't help but listen.

So, you may well ask, what was so fascinating about this argument that it would drag me away from the troubles of Little Nell and her gambling grandfather? Was it a difference of opinion over the trade tariffs and their effect upon Third World Debt? Was it a heated discussion over whether Blair should resign now, or continue until the next election?

Obviously not. It was an argument that I was expecting at any moment to break out into violence (again) over housework. More specifically over one person's ability to wash a plate well enough.

Whilst listening to this live, audio episode of Eastenders, I came up with a brain wave. How about we create an international force of Perspective Police? They'll go into troubled hot spots and calm everyone down and get them to really put their problems into some sort of relative importance.

How many battered wives would be living lives with their kidneys intact, once their abusive husbands have realised that, in the long run, a burnt fish finger just isn't that big a deal? I reckon a good number.

And it doesn't just stop on the domestic front. They could travel the world, bringing this wider, 'Big Picture' view to all and sundry. President Bush would sup tea with Osama Bin Laden, happy to know that in the grander scale of things, neither was as bad as the other thought. Tom would realise that Jerry's minor pilferings were really a trifle, hardly inconvenient when you think about it. Though I think we might hold out little hope for cats and dogs getting along...

I think if you took a step back, you'd realise just how stunning an idea this is.

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