The happy sound of crying chidren.

Something you may not know about me is how I like to torment and tease little children, like eating an ice cream in front of them without giving them one, or asking them if they want something then saying 'well you cant have it'... all good fun in my eyes.

There is nothing like a bit of healthy disappointment to prepare the young spirit for a world that doesn't give them everything they want, and often lets you down. If they get to deal with this at a young age, then I believe they are able to cope with this much better as they grow up.

I therefore found myself in a perfect position on the weekend having been selected to be on the judging panel for a junior talent quest. I began preparing some of my responses like 'give up on your dreams of being a performer, and take up accountancy' or 'I've heard better sounds coming from a howling dog' all that sort of degrading, spirit shattering, mean, devastating stuff.

Fortunately for the performers, the judges did not comment on each or the acts, but simply marked them on a number of criteria and totalled the scores at the end of the night and i must say that the level of talent on the night was exceptional (so I would have felt rather guilty about shattering the dreams of someone who was truly talented), most of the acts received encouraging scores from me, and having peeked at some of the other judges scores, i was being rather generous.

Apart from the 12 year old bagpipe player and his 7 year old brother who kept a beat for him on a snare drum, or the under 10 year old brother and sister team who sang terribly out of tune, though oozed of confidence, most of the acts were really quite good.

I was quite impressed with a few acts which had attained quite a high level of performance at such a young age, and of course there was also the cute factor when one 5 year old sang Jet's 'are you gonna be my girl' with such flair and perfect timing (though a slightly out of tune voice), only to return later in the night and perform 'Eye of the tiger' in hooded red boxing gown and boxing gloves punching the air with the musical accents. (The cuteness factor actually got this little fella into the grand final).

So by the end of the night, I didn't get to tear anyone's dreams apart mainly because no one really deserved it, and I wasn't really given the opportunity. In retrospect it probably ended up being a good thing as I really wouldn't have wanted to deal with angry parents and relatives of a bawling child. That's not to say that the temptation wasn't there with some of the lower quality acts.

Gosh if I sounded crap, I wouldn't want to be told that I sounded great just so that I don't embarrass myself on one of those tacky Idol competitions.

Ecca (the childhood dream wrecka)