The latest mad craze is knitting.

Watch out, American teens, you may be next. France, Belgium and Scandinavia have already fallen.

In the space of two weeks, the fashion for knitting bits of cheap plastic string into a pointlessly coloured piece of cord has invaded and utterly overthrown my students. There is no child in the school - not one - I'm including the sixteen year olds here - unswathed by bunches of brightly coloured plastic 'laces', and desperately knotting together some improbable pattern in the hopes it will hold till the next lot of colours can be swapped.

Children are drowned by pocketfuls of badly hidden string bunches, trailing fat neon feelers, seeking the next victim.

They're focussed entirely on threading and winding and bartering for new laces. No looking up. No tension whatsoever.

They can't do anything else. They can't talk about anything else. The school has gone scooby doo mad.

I know we're not the only ones, either.

Me, I don't mind it. They sit, in silence, learning no more than previously, knitting away with the stringy stuff, intently focussed for hours. It's less expensive than the 'fur coats & fur boots' craze of January. It's way less annoying than the texting, or than the 'downloading mobile phone porn' craze of October 2004.

Lisa assures me it's already becoming slightly unfashionable amongst the sixteen year olds. Once you've got one ugly plastic keyring, what do you do with the other ten? Madame Lisa predicts: making scooby doos will be 'so over', by the end of next week. Shame.

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Update:

Guilt at the number of increasingly desperate search hits forces me to show mercy: if you're looking for the laces, it's spelt 'Scoubidou', and you can buy them for silly prices on ebay, or you can learn to knit with them on the Scoubiland site, wherein lie the secret meanings of the scoubidou code ....

Colour	Meaning	Colour	Meaning
red	Best friend	red + white	I'm all yours
blue	I'm sorry	red + blue	Secret friends
yellow	Let's be friends	red + yellow	You're the only one
green	Let's make up	blue + pink	Girlfriend
white	Friends forever	blue + purple	Boyfriend
black	Let's hang out	red + orange	Together forever
orange	Groovy gal	orange + white	Heart broken
pink	Babe	orange + yellow	It will never end
purple	Fab friends	pink + pink	Beautiful eyes
white + white	100% Angel	pink + black	You're my teddy bear
black + black	100% Devil	blue + black	Muscle man
red + yellow	It's a girl thing	blue + white	Brain box
blue + yellow	Your secret's safe	yellow + yellow	Cheeky monkey
blue + green	All girl team	yellow + blue	Daft as a brush
blue + white	Girls together	green + black	Bees knees
purple + black	Don't Stop	pink + white	Soul Mate
green + white	Be mine	black + yellow	Busy bee
green + green	Nature lover	orange + orange	You're a tiger