Plumbing the Depths

I've never had a Blue Peter badge, not being That Kind of Person. I saw someone at the local swimming pool with one the other day and thought, it's the sort of thing that the truly cynical person might fake for a CV or something. You wonder, sometimes, if there are no depths to which people won't sink in order to pretend they're something they're not.

Or, in the case of the BP badge, Get Free Stuff.

Blue Peter announced on the programme last month that it was to suspend the perk after it was revealed that unsentimental owners were selling the badges on eBay, some openly bragging about the free entry that the badge permits.

There are estimated to be 500,000 genuine badge holders, who are allowed free entry to attractions if they are under 15. But the eBay trade came to light after staff at Edinburgh Zoo noticed that children seeking free entry were younger than the badges they were wearing."

It somehow seems worse than one of the 1966 World Cup squad having to flog his medal to pay the bills. I'm not talking about the people doing the buying, but the person who wakes up one day and decides to sell his/her Blue Peter badge.

That's just tragic, to reach that level of self-loathing and cynicism, don't you think?