WHATEVER happened to grown-ups? Come to that, whatever happened to children? New words in dictionaries this month include Tweenies - for children aged 8-12, and Middlescents - for those 40, 50 and even 60 somethings who've never grown up.

All of which means that we're all teenagers now - until about the time we collect our pensions.

Tweenies are the advertising man's latest great discovery - sub-adolescents with a keen eye for boys, fashion, CDs, phones, gadgets and even make-up - and with terrific pester power. Their tastes and fashions are just a candy-coloured version of their big sisters'. And are worth a terrific lot of money.

That's why childhood now ends at around eight-years-old.

Once upon a time, children wanted to dress like grown-ups, but now grown-ups want to dress like children. Overweight middle-aged grannies wear the same combination of sweatshirt and leggings as their toddler grand-daughters. Grown women wear little girl skirts and T-shirts with teddy bears or kittens, and those little backpacks that look like cuddly animals. Sweet on a four-year-old, but frankly alarming on anyone over 15. Boys can wear jeans and a football shirt from toddlerhood to senility.

(In passing, have you noticed that the older the man wearing football shirt, the fatter he is? By the time you get to a 60-year-old in his team's colours, he can barely get through the pub door.)

Pop stars are the worst, of course. Think Rod Stewart on a bad day. Cliff Richard was apparently at one of those posh dos where all the men were wearing DJs and what was baby-faced Cliff wearing? A scarlet jump suit. Now really, is that any garment for a grown-up?

AND it's not just the children's clothes we've adopted, we read their books - Harry Potter sold to adults as much as children - play their computer games and copy their crazes.Think of all those thirtysomethings who dashed out to buy scooters last year, or the city types who sit on the train playing games on their mobile phones.

Grown men used to spend their free time reading sensible publications like Reader's Digest or car or DIY magazines but now, according to a new survey, they're more likely to be gawping at Loaded or FHM.

Twelve-year-olds get the morning-after pill and sixtysomethings go backpacking in Nepal.

I'm not sure if we're acting our ages or our shoe sizes. But if you're only as old as you feel, then the average age of this country is currently about fifteen and three quarters.

THE BBC new Head of Religion, Alan Bookbinder, is agnostic. Sounds fair - a questioning attitude is less likely to exclude people and more likely to open up debate.

In any case, it's hard to see why so many people are bothered by this. After all, we already have a Minister of Transport who can't drive, a sports minister who knows little about sport and a strictly urban Minster for Rural Affairs, who is so concerned about this country's rural economy that she's holiday in France, as usual.

If it's good enough for the Government, I guess it's good enough for the BBC.

EDUCATION Secretary Estelle Morris has apologised to this year's lower sixth-formers who took the dreaded AS exams, which proved to be almost unworkable.

My 17-year-old was totally unimpressed with the apology but he, at least, survived them and coped reasonably well. Others didn't. Some were driven to illness and despair and an apology isn't going to make that much better.

Let's just hope that the new improved version of the exams has been thought out carefully and thoroughly. But don't hold your breath.

MARKS & Spencer's profits are tumbling again. What a surprise. The worst thing that happened to them was about ten years ago when glamorous fashion editors started singing their praises, mainly for their classic designs, such as plain blazers, quality knitwear, well-cut skirts and shirts.

Until then, M&S was just the store where you could pop in to buy this year's version of the classic, which you then tarted up with something more exciting from somewhere else.

But having once been in the fashion pages, M&S let it go to their heads and decided they were a fashion store. Big mistake. And that's when it all started to go horribly wrong.

Back to basics, M&S, it's the only way.

ON your bike. Even better on your feet. But whatever you do, leave the car at home for short journeys. It protects the environment, saves you money and gets you fit. A new advertising campaign is trying to persuade us not to use the car for journeys of less than a mile. Ridiculous, really, that we have to be told to do these things.

On the other hand, I'm a great walker, but I drive the mile to the gym to spend half an hour walking on the treadmill.

STEFFI Graf and Andre Agassi are said to be expecting a baby. Already I feel sorry for the unborn babe.

With the chances of it inheriting a double dose of super tennis-playing genes, I expect the trainers, sponsors and money men are already queuing to sign it up, even before it's made that little line in the pregnancy test window.

Published: 18/07/2001