The Way the Cookie Crumbled

No blog about children's media would be complete without some reference to the Blue Peter cat fiasco.

In the wake of the recent phone-in fixing scandals, to suggest more care ought to have been made in the decision to forgo the winning name goes without saying.

However, the reason to ignore the results of the actual vote still appear rather illusive.

If, as multiple sources have suggested, the successful name for the kitten, now known as 'Socks', had in fact been 'Cookie', I am at a loss why the production team decided to ignore the viewer vote.

Surely where a cat is concerned biscuits and clothing are equally obscure sources of name?

Or am I naively ignoring the realities of naming a being?

After all many parents spend 9 months umming and ahhing between two or three names, only to decide on a previously unconsidered moniker the second they see their newborn.

As the CBBC site clearly explains, the production team felt 'Socks' more appropriate once they came to appreciate the kitten's personality.

I will refrain from attempting to suggest how one's personality may be found to embody something you wear on your feet, however, I will suggest that, should this have really been the case, then honesty would have been the best, and simplest, policy.

Honesty is paramount with children.

Children will not respect you, or in fact even listen to you, if they don't feel like you are telling the whole story.

The only thing more patronising than being told half a story, is being told that you cannot hear the other half because you are too young.

To be honest I don't even understand the full story and I'm 23!

Whilst the BBC is to be applauded for its damage limitation - a statement both on the website and on the show itself, and the introduction of a new cat to be christened with the original winning name -some doubts still surround whether 'Cookie' was in fact the name which the crew carefully side-stepped.

Certain sources, including The Sun, have suggested that the winning name had in fact been 'Pussy'.

This version of events does lend itself more to understanding why the production team avoided using the viewers' choice.

Furthermore, as an student whose friends' courses have often seemed to involve 'modules' of sofa-hogging, daytime television endurance, and wasting free mobile-phone minutes, it does not take a great stretch of the imagination to understand how, had 'Pussy' been an option available to voters, the innuendo-ridden name may have quickly become the favourite.

If this was in fact the case, then why on earth was 'Pussy' ever even an option?!

Whilst Blue Peter has arguably very successfully moved with the times, and shed all suggestions of its quaint, twee beginnings, surely some degree of responsibility and decorum must remain with regards to such potential vulgarity? Children these days grow up far too quickly. They are regretfully audience to all manner of adult language, imagery and humour. Blue Peter has always struck me as a haven away from the harsher edges of reality. Like a straight-laced and well-educated, yet energetic and wordly nanny, the show should be there to highlight all the fun and nice elements of being a child, rather than rush children hurriedly into adulthood in the way that many other areas of the media do.

Charly Lester