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To define, delineate and defend, there is nothing more unifying than a uniform. It makes a statement, denotes your occupation, declares your rank or your position in an organisation - it announces your presence.

Now the uniform is under attack. It is under attack from the very people who wear it, it is an attack from within (this all sounds slightly totalitarian, but hell, it's telling it like it is).

Over the past three decades, the myth of the individual has been accepted across the globe. This has led those engaged in menial labour or servitude to question authority. They have demanded equal pay, to be protected in the work place, to be treated with respect, to wear what they want to wear.

This final indignity is a direct attack on the uniform and began in schools in the mid-60s. Schoolchildren with weak, liberal-minded, dope-smoking parents were allowed to express their individuality by wearing whatever their little hearts desired.

Are we surprised, 30 years on, that three-quarters of the population is illiterate? Illiterate and happily wearing thongs to school.

It doesn't end there. In the armed forces, police and clergy, there are go-getter fashion activists who are stripping the uniform of its power. I will give you one example as a template to understand the danger this poses to society: The uniformed, mounted police officer Vs The casual-look cop on a bike.

When the conflict of ideals turns sour and the battle of words becomes a real battle, the uniform has invariably been in the front line. Watching a precision team of riot police twirling batons and decimating sparrow-limbed academics is a marvellous thing.

The vision of a well-dressed police officer astride a mighty heaving stallion, flecks of spittle dried on its flanks and ready to charge, is a powerful and frightening image. Often, just the sight of mounted police is enough to discourage would-be demonstrators from senseless acts of demonstration. The uniform and the horse moving with balletic splendour: ranks shattering, the students falling, skulls popping under hoof.

Ask yourself this question: When the hour of truth comes, will the police force be up for it on mounted bikes, wearing shorts with ankle-high white socks? I think not. Figure-hugging shorts never really made it as the attire of oppression. It may have something to do with the musculature of the kneecap provoking humour.

And it's doubtful whether a bike could instill the same sense of fear in a group of blood-crazed demonstrators. Even the classic 1972 Chopper, with the streamers on the handlebars and a double-length banana seat, wouldn't be up to it. The bike helmet, while essential for protection of the scone is often not a good look over the red face of a wheezing constable.

Then there is the sad indignity of the bike when faced with a steep incline I have witnessed a cop, sweat pouring from his brow, flecks of spittle drying on his flanks, overcome with exhaustion, pushing the useless hunk of metal to the top of the rise. It says a lot about our society when, these days, all a villain has to do is find a hill and the chase is over.

Still, I have nothing but praise for the police in this attempt to blend in with community. But how long will it be until they're on skateboards and rollerblades in black lycra thongs and tank-tops tagging trains? Or before the army wants to go into battle with platinum wigs, printed floral gabardine slacks, boob tubes, sandals and facial hair? Does it matter if they're all wearing it? Yes, it does. It's important that, as we attempt to integrate various institutions into society, we do not become generics and our figures of authority do not become figures of fun.

What would happen to the rich, textured fabric of society if business people stop "power dressing" or if the clergy all adopt casual gear? We are defined by what we wear; clothes maketh the man and the woman and the celibate. Why change the habits of a lifetime?

Birds and bees do it - why are any different? And this pathetic attempt at justification by saying uniforms are oppressive is totally transparent - of course they are oppressive: that's what they're meant to be. If we continue in this farcical attempt to be like "the people" we will achieve it and no-one will know who anyone is.

Society needs structure. To enforce this structure you need recognisable forces. Bear in mind without a wimple there never would have been a Flying Nun. If this world comes apart at the seams because we've lost respect for the uniform, then sadly, we'll all just have to wear it.

In the days of longhand, to take pen to paper was a joy to mark the feint-ruled virgin white of the sheet with an indelible blue-black ink was powerful, invigorating. To witness a waste bin filled with failure at least gave you a sense of progress. Here, there is only the empty, flickering screen, that faint hum of the hard drive and the slow clatter of the keyboard. It's difficult to think in this post-Saturday night state; the contents of my skull are dehydrated, the synapses misfiring, the thoughts muddled. I'm trapped and require somethingto prise me loose. At present the file and I are one, we're both empty vessels that need to be filled.

Thus in my less than human, slightly nauseated condition, I find myself fixated on a little hole. It's the one thing that has always confused me about the Apple Mac (all the models I have ever used have it). It's an opening on the hard drive just beneath where you place the floppy disc, and if the disc is seized you penetrate the hole with a paper clip to free it.

Does this strike anyone else as odd? Surely it's one of the more disturbing aspects of the computer age that if a machine this complex malfunctions, it requires a paper clip to fix it. Doesn't this cut against the mythical promise and the entire ethos of the computer age - that we could save forests and jungles from devastation by dispensing with paper? And if we don't have any paper, why the hell would we need paper clips? Would we keep them on our desks as a memento of the old days, like reusable plastic Post-its or digital desk calendars?

It's a strange dilemma. You could have an entire library stuck on a floppy and unless you can find a paper clip you can't get it out. The greatest power for centuries at your fingertips, to unlock the stuff of dreams or a second-rate computer game, and it's reliant on a bent strip of metal.

Was it someone's idea of a joke? Why didn't the designers or engineers put an extra little button there so if something did get stuck, you could simply press it? And why does it get stuck in the first place? Couldn't those same designers have designed it a bit better so that the disc never got stuck? This minuscule advance would take away the need for the paper clip. It might mean a bit more sweat at the drawing board, but someone is paying a fortune to hordes of gifted, bespectacled, sexless freaks for this sort of leap of the imagination. And thou I do not want to dwell on the financial outlay, it seems a bit ripe, after you've spent your life savings on this modern marvel of circuitry and science, to have to go out and purchase a paper clip.

Is there some government body guarding consumers against this sort of racket? With every computer purchased over $5000, you should be entitled to a free paper clip. Is that too much to ask?

Perhaps the makers of the Apple Macintosh are in league with paper clip multinationals. The paper clip manufacturers, realising their imminent demise, attempted to ensure their survival by crawling into bed with the enemy. Does it come as any surprise that the initials of "paper clip" are P.C.?

All this may seem like an overreaction but believe me, when it's late, past the deadline and the floppy gets stuck, you'll reach for anything to shove in that hole. You tend to lose all sense of reason and propriety. You're driven by the toaster mentality - when the toast gets stuck and, being fully conscious of the dangers involved, you reach instinctively for a knife.

I love my old Power Mac, but some days I find myself staring at that little hole and just wondering why. This paper clip conspiracy might be part of the same oversight that gave birth to the Y2K bug and the potential end of civilisation, but I choose to believe it's a marvellously intricate idea. It raises questions about our over-reliance on machines and at the sarne time speaks of the interconnectedness of all things. Apple might have brilliantly presented us with the physical representation of a parable: the lion (computer) needed the mouse (paper clip) to remove the thorn (floppy disc) from its paw (hard drive). What lessons can we learn? The hole has been filled, the screen is full of words and all that remains is to get it out of the machine and down on paper.

Celebrating the older person is a beautiful idea, but there are practical concerns that must be voiced. The first: Perhaps the older person has enough to celebrate with the arrival of Viagra. Does the older person really have the heart to celebrate anything else? OPs (older people) have been telling us for years they're sexual beings, driven by dark animal urges to forage licentiously and procreate. I believe most of society accepts this - we just don't want to think about it too much.

The second dilemma (this may appear callous on the surface, but take a minute to visit the depth), how many of the goodly, wintry folk are going to make it to the celebrations at the end of the year? I'll warrant a great number of the geriatric funsters, who started in January on a high, won't be there for the closing party.

It's a terrible thought to have amid all these festivities, but it's something we must be conscious of. It's all fun now, but by May the croakers will be a bit teary and looking for somewhere nice to lie down. They'll be tuckered out by June and spend the rest of the year complaining. In August they'll be having an afternoon nap lasting until October. Let's not even think of all the arrangements we'll be making in November and December.

Thankfully, younger people are becoming older people everyday. We may take some solace in the fact that the end will be just as full of back ailments, fatigue, dementia and weeping sores as the beginning.

Where young people are dynamic and wild, old people are shrewd and wise. OPs have acquired a lifetime of knowledge, understanding and wisdom, they have battled for love and liberty, and they have made fine jams. The marvellous tales the elderly could tell would keep the no-good-drug-addled-young-people of today entranced for hours - if the fogies could just remember them.

Most of the time, the rebels-of-yesteryear are sitting two inches from the TV ("I remember before TV, what fun we'd have, sitting around a wireless and looking at it") lusting after the Queen Mum's fashion sense or praising the straight-down-the-line policies of Pauline.

There's nothing new about the Year of the Old, and there is no time like the present to respect our older take a minute to visit the depth), how many of the goodly, wintry folk are going to make it to the celebrations at the end of the year? I'll warrant a great number of the geriatric funsters, who started in January on a high, won't be there for the closing party.

The old may not be our most precious resource, but we only have to look at such classic films as On Golden Pond, Grumpy Old Men and Soylent Green to know their real worth. And in the end, if we reach the end, we all get old. Any spindly, glaucoma-ridden creature reading this knows only too well what's waiting for us once we throw up the sweet wine of youth.

I have tried, in this article, not to succumb to the stereotypical image of the elderly as petulant, grumpy monarchists whose only joy is to be a burden to their family. This sort of attitude would be as blinkered as suggesting that all young people are misguided, useless republicans whose only joy is to be a burden to their family. I failed in this task because I feel bitter and cheated, they've managed to do it again.

They've managed, which is more irritating than anything else, to screw up our chance of having a Year of the Older Person when we are older people. Once again the previous generation has had their cake and sucked-it-up-with-a-straw, too. They had the wars, the '60s, the atomic age and the Beatles; we got disco, the '80s, AIDS and Kajagoogoo. By the time we reach the OP years, it'll be time for the Year of the Young Person again, or of the Foetus, or of the Unconceived,

It is said that youth and all of its trappings (spontaneity, excessive joy, foolishness) are wasted on the young, this year they belong to the older person. So, to all the lucky OPs: Celebrate, but watch your backs.

How did that make you feel?
Like the Australian Education Department has sounded my death knell. I felt soiled, dirty. They used an article of mine as a test! I've become, through no fault of my own, a member of the Establishment, assimilated into the school system, the thing I despise.

Who do you blame?
I blame society, and the individual who thought it was a good idea. What kind of world are we living in where our children are not only allowed to read this sort of crap but have to answer questions on it as well? Where's Proust, Eliot, Burroughs and Schulz? And, to my knowledge, my permission was not sought. It leaves one to ponder the nature of the education system when literary theft is an accepted part of the curriculum. Who can answer honestly on a stolen document?

What was the article about?
It was about construction and was called "Deconstructing construction". The disturbing aspect for me is to talk of deconstruction and then to pose questions about the author's intent. This undermines the notion of deconstruction, where the interpretation of the text itself is of utmost importance. I would suggest that this casual use of the term merely serves to muddy the already murky waters of deconstructionism. It is even more fallacious in this instance, as part of the intent was to get through it as quickly as possible so that I could get to after a night of frivolity and excess and nurse the hangover I knew was approaching. I now see it as my role to reconstruct the deconstructed construction.

What are your memories of school?
Gestetner, the scrape of chalk on blackboards, the misery of friendship, the loss of faith, soured milk, Phil Hammond's scab collection, and waiting - mainly waiting.

Were they the best years of your life?
From my first cautious steps on linoleum floors in a demountable room that served as preschool to that final run to freedom from a pebblecrete quadrangle at the end of Year 12, I could easily count them as some of my worst.

What can you do about it now?
I can attempt to subvert the course of education by offering these answers in a national newspaper. If any student has yet to hand in this assignment, then I hope the notes of the author concerning the authored work may be of some assistence. (It also means the Education Department will be less likely to try this shit next year.) Here are the questions, with my answers...

What is the purpose of the article?
Financial - purely a way of making money. There was certainly no depth to it or any artistic need to fulfill. I remember sitting at the Mac with two hours until a deadline and scribbling notes of annoyance - nothing more. In more civilised times I would have been called a whinger and that would've been it.

Comment on the effectiveness of the following...
What follow are three examples of the writer's work that for reasons of personal shame I feel unable to reprint. Suffice to say they take a Victorian approach, meticulously overwrought and selfconscious.

What is the tone of the article?
Dull and aggressive.

How is the tone established?
By using too many adjectives and antonyms of words like: beautiful, wondrous, picturesque.

What function does memory serve?
I can recall there wasn't much memory in it. I had succeeded in eating most of that away with that night of "frivolity and excess".

How does the writer use personal experience to present his views?
There was no personal experience. I haven't been out of the house for 20 years. I invented most of it and plagiarised the rest. In the real world you don't have to be good, you just have to be canny.

How effectively does the writer use language to engage the reader?
Not that effectively. On a scale of one to ten (where one is the love songs of Bread and ten is the work of Flaubert), I would say around three.

You might consider structure, vocabulary, mood and any other features you consider relevant.
Why consider? It's all there for you. Go outside and enjoy the day before they start taxing the air.

Any questions?