Beware the hooded top, my son

I heard this morning that Bluewater shopping centre in Kent has reported a noticeable increase in customer numbers since it banned people wearing hooded tops. The reason for the ban was that hooded tops apparently turn young people from sweet angels to despicable troublemakers. And gangs of these troublemakers had been hanging round the shops making trouble – shoplifting, swearing at old people and spitting gum on the floor. The usual.

I'm not quite sure of the mechanism by which the hooded top is supposed to alter the behaviour pattern of youngsters in this way – a mind control device in the hood is the obvious one but I have no evidence to prove this. Clearly it's inconceivable that these could just be "kids gone bad" who would still hang around and cause trouble regardless of whether or not they are wearing a hood?. No, it must be the hood controlling them (or maybe it's The Hood from Thunderbirds?).

But this is only the start.

Hooded tops are not the only item of clothing that have the power to control minds and alter behaviour. There is another.

I'm referring to the cult of the armband. Everywhere I look I see people wearing tiny little coloured rubber armbands. If you look closely at these armbands you can see that some of them have writing on them. They say things like "Make poverty history", "Stop bullying", "Cancer is really bad" and "Bring back Busted".

These are thoughts that are so radical and so outlandish that they would never have even crossed the minds of most sane, rational people. Who ever knew that poverty was a problem?

And this is where the armbands come in. Simply by being worn, they emit signals which make people aware that there are poor people, that strange kids will get bullied (possibly by people wearing hooded tops) and that cancer is really, really dangerous. Things that they just hadn't thought of before. And then because people are aware of these things, they'll go out and change the world. The poor will be fed. Fat kids will be able to eat lunch in peace. Cancer cures will be cooked up in kitchens around the land. And Busted will reform in time for Christmas.

That must be how it works. Armbands – signals – mind control – better world.

Yeah, right.

In reality, the armband does absolutely nothing. All it does is salve the conscience of those people who wear them, fooling them into thinking that they're making a difference. Or at least fooling them into thinking that they'll fool the world that they're making a difference. They're a fashion statement. No more, no less. And the people who wear them are idiots.

I however am not an idiot. I am actively making the world better. I recently went for a whole week without bullying my staff at work. And last year I bought a book from Oxfam.

Stick that, armband freaks.