Too Much Leg

Among the advantages of living on the global side of the Irish border is apparently the right of schools to impose Victorian dress codes on female pupils. Alas, such decencies will soon be a thing of the past, as the Northern Ireland education minister has slackened so far as to legislate for girls to have the right of transsexualising the garments on their lower extremities. The minister is a member of the Diehard Ulster Protestant party, so the backsliding has no doubt been a painful one; and his Calvary will only grow harsher with posterity's inevitable linkage of his name to flared jeans in deportment class and fluorescent rock-and-roll hotpants during prayers.