WHEN a teenage girl has an angry, tearful strop, most parents just send them to their rooms until they’ve calmed down.

However, when 16-year-old Greta Thunberg got on to the stage at the UN this week and had a full-on adolescent meltdown, she was deafened by the applause.

5 I’m sorry Ms Thunberg, but if you’re going to lay into my generation, you must accept it when I lay into you and yours Credit: AFP

Not from me she wasn’t.

Because I was in the bog, being sick.

“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood,” she sobbed.

“We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you?”

Right, well in the immortal words of Samuel L Jackson: “Allow me to retort.”

How dare we? No. How dare you sail to America on a carbon fibre yacht that you didn’t build which cost £15million, that you didn’t earn, and which has a back-up diesel engine that you didn’t mention.

SORRY MS THUNBERG

I’m sorry Ms Thunberg, but if you’re going to lay into my generation, you must accept it when I lay into you and yours.

What about the pills you take when you have a headache?

What about the clean water that comes out of your tap? What about the food you can buy at any time of the day and night?

No 16-year-old was responsible for any of that.

What about the aid missions currently being run in some of the poorest countries of the world, or the drugs that help keep Aids at bay?

Think about all the movies you’ve enjoyed. Movies made by grown-ups. And all those comedians who’ve made you laugh.

5 How dare you sail to America on a carbon fibre yacht that you didn’t build which cost £15million, that you didn’t earn, and which has a back-up diesel engine that you didn’t mention Credit: AFP or licensors

And then pause for a moment to consider how soundly you sleep at night, knowing that adults are building and servicing and flying Sweden’s fighter planes. To keep you safe.

We gave you mobile phones and laptops and the internet. We created the social media you use every day and we run the banks that pay for it all.

So how dare you stand there and lecture us, you spoilt brat.



SPOILT BRAT

And yes, you are spoilt because when you told your mum and dad to stop using planes and give up meat, they didn’t behave like sane parents and ignore you. They actually said, “Yes, dear.” And did.

What they should have done is point out that life is tragic.

Some people are born bright and some are born stupid.

Some are beautiful and some are not.

Some have rich parents who give them everything but love.

Some have poor parents who have nothing to give except love.

Now shut up and let them get on with it.

This is how the world works. It’s how the world has always worked.

And banging your fists on the table won’t change a thing. You’ll learn that when you’ve got a few more years under your belt.

I agree with you that the world is heating up. You may even be right that man has something to do with it.

5 Science is what will solve the problem eventually... Not scowling and having screaming ab-dabs every five minutes Credit: Reuters

And there is no doubt that as deserts eat into currently habitable places in Africa and the Middle East, Europe will face an unimaginable refugee crisis.

Something needs to be done about that. So how’s this for an idea. Get back to school as quickly as possible and work hard in your science lectures.

Because science is what will solve the problem eventually. Not scowling and having screaming ab-dabs every five minutes.

Many thousands of people who you had the temerity to blame this week are trying to do exactly what you want.

So be a good girl, shut up and let them get on with it.

And no. You cannot stay out past ten. And you cannot go out in a skirt that short.

IT IS NO COOK-UP AFTER the collapse of Thomas Cook, I started to count down from ten to zero but only got to six before everyone started blaming the fat-cat bosses who took home big lumps of cash as the company floundered. Yes. It looks bad. But when a company is in a mess, you need the best business brains to try to sort it out. And the best business brains don’t come cheap.

Sam's 'they' is a Brit of a snag

SAM Smith, who’s a singer I think, announced recently that “he” doesn’t consider “himself” to be a man or a woman and wants everyone to refer to “him” as “they” in future.

They said on Instagram that they have been at war with themselves for . . . oh, I give up. It’s too difficult.

5 'They' said on Instagram that they have been at war with themselves for . . . oh, I give up. It’s too difficult Credit: Splash News

It’s also difficult for the organisers of the Brit Awards, who are now having to work out whether there should be separate awards in future for men and women.

Because what happens if Mr and/or Mrs Smith wins one?

As non-binary people continue to increase the noise they make about their non-binariness, this is going to be a problem everywhere.

It can’t be long before the right-on Oscar people have to address the issue.

I bet they already have with the lavatories.

And after that, there will be Wimbledon and football, where there will have to be a new league for people who aren’t men OR women.

Or they will have to let women and the neither/nors into the Premier League? Probably not such a bad idea at Spurs these days.

‘MEG’S A WOMAN’ SHOCKER' BEFORE beginning her big speech in South Africa this week, Meghan sought to win over the crowds by saying: “I’m here with you as a mother, a wife, as a woman, a woman of colour and your sister”. Right. I see. So, if the speech had been delivered by someone who began by saying: “I’m here with you as a father, a husband, a man and your brother”, would that have made what followed less important?

Sabre jet isn't as fast as web

EVER since I was a small boy, people have been claiming to be on the verge of inventing a new plane which will get to Australia in time for tea.

We’ve had ramjets and scramjets and rockets and all we’ve ever really seen in the flesh is Concorde, which could only carry enough fuel to reach New York, and the SR-71 Blackbird which could only carry one passenger.

5 Just take the internet — it's quicker and cheaper Credit: Mission Pictures

Now, though, a British company has announced the Synergetic Air Breathing Rocket Engine – Sabre – which they say will enable a passenger plane to get from London to Oz, via space, in four hours.

That’s fantastic, of course, and I wish them well.

But the truth is that the world doesn’t really need fast aircraft any more.

The Blackbird spy plane was replaced by satellites, and Concorde was replaced by something that can get businessmen across the Atlantic in no time at all.

It’s called the internet.

CORBYN’S ILL WIND JEREMY CORBYN had planned to visit a wind farm while he was at Labour’s annual conference in Brighton this week. But the trip had to be cancelled because . . . it was too windy.