This is a public service announcement for the benefit of those of a certain age, like myself, who are watching the younger generation take over the helm of our crumbling world, and who wonder whether they really have the intellect or the mettle to get it back on track. They do, they just don’t speak the same language as you.

I offer you an exclusive insight into the minds of those unfathomable young people.

In far off Japan, a middle aged teacher adopts a stray dog. She put a picture of the dog on her web site – to join the pictures of all the other rescue animals she has that no one apart from her friends and family have ever taken a blind bit of notice of.

Kabosu, for that was the dog’s name, was looking sideways. This is important in the world of the young. Its a sign like, innit? Lol! Wow! Lulz!

They didn’t know the dog’s name, in fact they couldn’t even spell Dog, but they knew their social media. Soon millions (and I do mean millions!) of pictures of Kabosu were swamping the Internet, popping up in inboxes round the world. Kabosu, or ‘Doge’ as he was now known, was an Internet star.

‘Doge’! They screamed. ‘Lulz’!

The young like to decorate their idols, so they sharpened their best Photoshop crayon, licked the end, and wrote meaningful things on the picture. No really. When you see them sitting in your lecture hall, looking intelligent and taking notes, this is what they are actually doing. This is how they impress each other.

A web site called ‘Welcome to Venice‘ – (No, of course it’s not a travelogue about the educational culture available in Venice, you old fashioned trollop, do try to keep up with modern life) published a picture of ‘Doge’ with a cup and saucer on his head. As you do. Nice scrat and all that to you too.

Wow! Lulz! The Internet went crazy. 33,000 hits in an hour. These young people are really on the button. (Worryingly, the owner of ‘Welcome to Venice’ appears to be some sort of air traffic controller. Not that I am suggesting for one moment that he might have been figuring out how to get Doge to look cute with a cup and saucer on his head during working hours. Just. Well, it’s as cheap to drive these days).

Then Doge popped up on Reddit (this is a site which tells the independently minded youngsters what is socially acceptable to read) with a hugely popular post titled “LMBO LOOK @ THIS FUKKIN DOGE.” How could you ignore that entreaty?

‘Doge’ was rivalling ‘Lolcatz’ as the means by which the next generation ‘express complex philosophical ideas’ according to expert linguist Annalee Newitz. You did know that the time honoured moral compass – the Bible – has been translated into ‘Lolcatz’ for the benefit of the sexting generation who can no longer read English? Oh dear, you really aren’t down wiv da yoof at all, are you?

A lot of journalists are struggling to keep up with Doge; no point in writing in English if your audience don’t understand it. Annalee’s tweet was retweeted and commented on 40,000 times eventually!

The Bankers weren’t far behind. “Dogecoin – very currency – many coin – wow – v1.1 Released.” Lolz! The Doge speakers understood that!

Similar to Bitcoin and its derivatives, Dogecoin can be mined and exchanged for goods and services among the participants. Following the launch of the official website, a slew of social media channels and referential webpages soon emerged for Dogecoin, including a Twitter account and a Facebook page, racking up more than 1,000 followers and 1,800 likes within the the first week, respectively….By December 14th, an

encyclopaedic article describing the concept of “Dogecoin” had been submitted by Wikipedia editor ‘CitationNeeded’. At its peak, the estimated value of DogeCoin skyrocketed to a high of $400.80 per coin.

Nor were the thieves far behind…..On Christmas Day several holders of Dogecoin reported that their funds were being transferred to an unknown account identified as “DQT9WcqmUyyccrxQvSrjcFCqRxt8eVBLx8.” Later that same day, the founders of the Dogecoin storage system Dogewallet, temporarily shut down the service and issued a statement confirming that a hacker had gained access to its file system and modified its pages to reroute the coin transfer to a static account. (That’s one of those old fashioned banks you remember from your youth where most of the staff speak English and deal in coins with the Queen’s head on….).

This is the world from which those who control our lives are drawn from now – so prepare yourself: when you are standing up to your waist in swamp water in your retirement bungalow in Floodlands, Somerset, and you want to ask the environment department what they are going to do about it, here’s your template.

LMBO LOOK @ THIS FUKKIN DOGE WATER UP MI ASS

So WOW! Much wet! Very sewage! Very pissed! LULZ!

Ta so! [Your name] Retired. (And please don’t forget to include a picture of a Japanese Shiba Inu dog wearing lipstick and wellie boots).

The bright young things in the Department of the Environment will understand.

Woof! Woof!