IN A desperate attempt to slurp up the last drops of my personal elixir of youth, I have started going to student debates. Last week I dropped in on Debating Matters, the Institute of Ideas’s admirable new debating competition for sixth-formers, which has just completed its regional heats. (The national finals are in March.) Rather disconcertingly, I seemed to be the oldest person in the audience by some decades, which was a pity. If we want to combat political apathy among teenagers, the first step is surely for middle-aged media plonkers like me to start listening to their views, rather than dismissing them as the jejune chit-chat of people who want to sit around all day watching Big Brother.

Mind you, the North London derby I saw, between Camden School for Girls and Fortismere School in Finchley, was not entirely reassuring on the latter point, since the motion chosen for debate was (surprise, surprise) “Reality TV is dumbing down British broadcasting” — a subject about which all speakers, pro and con, seemed to have alarmingly detailed knowledge. But, then, as was pointed out by one of the Fortismere team (speaking for the motion), there’s an awful lot of it about. She and her friends had been able to list no fewer than 27 reality-TV programmes “without referring to a listings magazine”. Gosh. In my schooldays such prodigious feats of memory were reserved for far more important things, such as knowing exactly which local newsagents allowed 14-year-olds to buy ciggies and Playboy.

Both sides “ummed” a bit under pressure, but they also made pungent points. In a “celebrity-obsessed culture”, reality TV allowed “the media to feed the media”, declared a Fortismere girl. (Great phrase! I shall plagiarise it shamelessly.) For instance, she continued, Big Brother makes some “stereotypical Essex bimbo” famous (no love lost, clearly, between North London girls and Essex girls), then the tabloids plaster her all over their front pages as though she is important news.

That was good, punchy stuff. Unfortunately, Fortismere then drifted off into a contorted plea for yet more wildlife documentaries, which sent everyone to sleep.

Camden cannily responded with the classic “who are we to tell ordinary people what to watch?” argument — always guaranteed to stir up middle-class guilt on occasions like this. Less persuasive was their claim that shows such as Survivor, Big Brother and Wife Swap “teach us skills for life”. “Such as selfishness, narcissism and aggression?” an audience member asked.

More worryingly, Camden also advanced the view that Big Brother is “all about democracy”, since “you can vote people off the show”. Hmm. Either the programme has a deep, symbolic subtext that has eluded me, or they teach a very stunted notion of democracy in Camden.

Responding to that, the Fortismere side tried to alarm us with a vision of a country in which “more people vote in a Big Brother poll than in a general election”. If that’s the case, retorted Camden, “it’s because Big Brother offers a real choice”. Touché. Camden won the day.

The whole contest is like that: sometimes raw and stuttering, but always stimulating and fresh. Debating Matters would make great reality TV, in fact. But don’t hold your breath. Reality-TV shows are commissioned by middle-aged media plonkers who think that teenagers want to sit around all day watching Big Brother.

APOCALYPSE LATER

TALKING of media plonkers, you know it’s almost Oscars time? Well, not until February 29, but Variety, the showbiz bible, has already issued an Oscars preview predicting voting trends, including the impact of the Iraq war. On that matter it seems that, whereas Hollywood was in gung-ho mood nine months ago, Tinseltown today is apparently seething with self-righteous anger and disillusion.

Oh, goody. So can we expect some big, brave film director to bring out a hard-hitting anti-war masterpiece: a new Apocalypse Now? Undoubtedly. But not until years after the war is safely over, if Hollywood’s response to Vietnam is any precedent. To do it now would be political dynamite. And when it comes to peeping over a parapet — even if the parapet is a film set — discretion has always been the better part of Hollywood’s valour.

COLD METAL, HOT JAZZ

FINALLY, what’s your view of the most contentious musical question of our time, ie, should you deep-freeze your trumpet? If you think I’ve gone completely barking, you are right, but not because I have just written that sentence. The Deep-Freeze Conundrum has split the musical world asunder. It began five years ago, when rumours spread in US brass circles about the startling results some top jazz and classical players had obtained by having their instruments “ cryogenically” treated: exposed to temperatures below minus 190C. Allegedly, this had a dramatic impact on the instruments’ molecules. Well, it would, wouldn’t it? They would be shivering to death, poor things. But advocates of the process claimed that it made metal harder, so the instruments are easier to blow.

I liked that theory. It seemed to explain why my teenage brass-playing career was such a hit-and-miss affair. Clearly, it was because we were too poor to afford a fridge big enough to freeze my trombone.

Many distinguished American brass players were convinced, too, and switched to instruments which had, in a very literal sense, come in from the cold. But last month shattering news arrived. Scientists at Tufts University declared the cryogenic treatment of instruments to be hogwash.

They don’t deny that brass players might perform better after deep-freezing their tubas, trumpets or horns. But this, they say, is because the players have psyched themselves into believing that they have a better instrument — just as the jogger who spends a fortune on fancy-label trainers cons himself into thinking that he will now skim along the pavements like a gazelle on skates. In other words, it’s all in the mind.

Just as well, perhaps. British brass players, a distinctly more sceptical bunch than their American colleagues, have mostly given the cryogenics craze a cold shoulder. They wisely decided that fridges have a much more essential and traditional role to play in musical life — namely, keeping large stocks of strong lager at the necessary restorative temperature.

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