Mark Andrews: Teen angst, rawdogging and light at the end of the railway tunnel

Yep, those 17-year-old Tommies in the trenches of the Somme didn't know they were born.

"Scared of going over the top, son? Count yourself lucky, in a hundred years from now, people your age will have to cope with intergenerational inequality, anxiety surrounding social media, and neoliberal economics."

And don't get me started on the generation that lived through Graham Turner's stint as Villa manager.

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Have you been rawdogging lately?

I noticed the term in the headlines of some of the trendier broadsheets recently, and assumed it was something far too sordid for an innocent like myself to read about.

Of course, I eventually succumbed to the temptation. And discovered I had been doing it for years.

Apparently, rawdogging is a new 'sport', which involves, er, sitting on an aeroplane for a few hours without any entertainment.

Which I always though was called 'flying'.

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Seriously, isn't that what everybody does? Maybe it's because I'm tight, but I haven't been on a plane with in-flight movies for years. And even when there was such a thing, I never bothered watching because they rarely showed any of the good stuff, like Carry on Cabbie or Mutiny On The Buses.

I tried reading a newspaper or a book, but the motion just usually gives me a headache and I give up, lie back and try to get a few winks of sleep. Which I am pretty sure is what everybody else does too.

This rawdogging is more common than the broadsheets realise.

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And could it be a passport to Olympic glory? After all, we've just had skateboarding, BMX-riding and break-dancing in the Paris Olympics, so why not sitting on a plane? And if somebody can convince the International Olympic Committee that falling asleep in a chair while watching Match of the Day is worthy of inclusion....

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Light at the end of the railway tunnel in the train strike, then.

Well sort of. As Nye Bevan might have said, the new government has 'stuffed the train drivers' mouths with gold', offering the £64,000-a-year workers a 15 per cent rise over three years. Not quite the same as the 22 per cent offered to the doctors, but nice all the same.

Remember that in the autumn, when the Chancellor hikes up taxes on people earning half that amount, because of the 'black hole' in public finances.

Transport Secretary Louise Haigh says it is about 'bringing an end to rail strikes'. Just like when Harold Wilson promised to 'get the miners back to work' with a 35 per cent pay rise.

Which, as we all know, marked the dawn of a golden era of industrial harmony and pay restraint.