I received an email just now from a bloke I hardly know. Well, I don't think I know him. Anyway, he was going on about boycotting certain oil companies to encourage them to drive down their costs.

Valid point I thought, especially that the rising price at the pumps is a regular cry from my own internal whinger. Still, before my once revolutionary spirit even got a chance to begin stirring, along came that old sinking feeling - that this campaign would never work. Surely only folks with (now, now, be careful Veron!) let's say, time to spare that should be taken up with normal human interaction are interested in such things?

'Shame on you!' my internal whinger whispered and then shouted to me. 'The teenaged Veron would be ashamed of you!' To be truthful, the older version wasn't too proud of himself either.

Just when did the switch happen? Do you remember when folks were only too eager to picket/ blockade/ boycott at the slight mention of an injustice, sometimes well before they knew what the issues were? When did my 'get up and go' well, get up and leave?

Have we been pacified by the ease of our push-button world or just intimidated into inaction by the power of corporate Britain?

But just then, the fomer rebel in me began to rise, fuelled (no pun intended) by the glory days of protesting long and hard with the ambulance workers, anti-apartheid campaigners ... and those bunking off college pretending to have political issues with the poll tax.

'Yeah that bloke has a point,' the rebel shouted back, although with a shaky determination he hoped would last longer than the time it takes for him to log off.

Do you moan about things but bypass opportunities to do something about the issues that cause the moaning? Like I did, do you cringe when an emailer tries to fire you up with a cause?

Tell me, where have all the campaigns gone?

Anyway, I've got to go now. There's an email somewhere that I need to respond to.

Where do you stand on the debate over whether athletes should be involved in the Olympics considering the Chinese hosts' human rights record concerning Tibet?

Well they shouldn't go and the very fact that this is an ongoing debate highlights something about society too many of us complain about but still overlook.

For far too long folks have looked at other peoples' situations and decided that it is nothing to do with them. Well as far as I am concerned it has everything to do with every person who takes part in those Games later this year.

The very act of getting involved equates to acceptance of the situation. How can it not? Is the fact that Tibet isn't the most celebrated country in the world that its plight can be overlooked so easily?

Is it that China is the world's leading emerging financial power which offers a major market for business from the 'developed' world why the Games were even given to them in the first place?

If sport and business/ politics were truly to be kept separate as some of the apologists for China have been saying, the country wouldn't have been given the chance to host the Games in the first place.

Will you join me in chanting, 'Hell No They Shouldn't Go ...?'

How many times have you heard or seen a youngster that isn't doing well in education? One who doesn't want to work too hard or too long to succeed? Or, in line with current trends, is banking on starring in a reality show which will fast-track them to fame and fortune.

Well, these attitudes do not apply to all young people and I'm a great believer in giving credit where it is due.

A few months ago I was asked to give some help and advice to an aspiring media professional by her older relative - a request that has been made of me on many occassions. However this time, I was not approached half-heartedly by someone looking for the quickest way into the business with the least amount of effort or who froze at the thought of hard work, as has happened in say 70% of cases. Sephrah Anderson (pictured) has helped restore my floundering faith in our young people.

Sephrah spent several days working with me and showed an ambition and thirst for knowledge that I haven't seen for a long time! She brought with her a timely reminder that, despite the many of the negative stories we come across, there is hope for the future.

Now - enough of the warm sentimentality!

I, like many of you, didn't have anyone around who was capable of giving me much professional guidance. Nowadays, most of us either know someone in the legal profession, education, social work, IT, law enforcement, health care, media, etc or at least knows someone who knows someone who does. That means all of us can either do something to help steer the youth on their way or link them up with someone who can.

I for one am tired of the excuses made for the lack of progression and ambition amongst some of our youth. None of us can help all the youngsters coming through but we can each do something. Not being able to totally remove a problem is not an excuse for not doing anything about it.

To borrow from a line from Janet Jackson, what have you done for youth lately?

Anthony, thanks for your comments tagged onto the 'Briishness Scheme Really Bugs Me' debate.

My views on this subject, as they are on many things, are quite controversial.

I agree that there should be a representation of as many cultures, religions and creeds on any advisory panel, particularly one which deals with the very real and dangerous realities of gangs and guns.

We know that there are still forces out there who do not want to give 'other' people any kind of influence at all, but as a child of the late 70s/ 80s, I believe the days of wholesale community action for improvement are gone, if not over all together.

As a media professional of some years, I've seen too many people, including Black folks, sitting on committees, banging on about 'the issues' to anyone that comes near them and holding court at conferences discussing what needs to be done - often without genuine interest in seeing positive changes made.

Sometimes the real issue for them is to make themselves sufficiently visible and audible in time for the next round of funding.

I think that if Black folks or anyone else wants influence, this needs to start with, as the song says, the man (or woman) in the mirror, making sure they are positive, law-abiding person who is making a valid contribution to society. It should then move to caring for their families; making sure their siblings, children, nephews/ nieces are doing the right things too, and move on from there.

Too many of us, particularly as Black men, have moved away from their own sphere of influence in their own families to try to build the community. Don't get me wrong, that is good in itself, but what real value would I be to my own son if the only time he saw my fatherly nature was is in some committee meeting?

It might take a generation for the effects to be visible but this current climate didn't occur overnight either. Since 1981 I've personally seen the cycle of discontent, riots, insufficient governmental action repeated over and over again. If we want this done, we've got to do it ourselves.

Anthony, we need brothers like you to keep pushing for Black influence at decision-making levels but we also need to keep encouraging our own people to do all they can where they can whether or not these opportunities become available.

So the government want schoolchildren to swear ... their allegiance to the Queen as part of radical new shake-up to increase our sense of Britishness, the media reports.

You'll find plenty of swearing in schools across our nation, but I can't quite see this type taking off. Neither can I see this being tremendously popular with us grown folk, including some of the asylum seekers and refugees who've come to the UK without their manners and common decency.

Once again, the ruling classes are flouting their responsibilities to the nation; this time believing that we'll all feel better under a painted-on, pseudo-hippy ideology that we are all one big happy country.

May I suggest that before ex-Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, the man who reportedly put this 'thought' forward, goes any further, perhaps he could suggest an idea which will make Britain a place that folks genuinely want to pledge allegiance to?

Where crime is punished adequately, opportunities for improvement exist for anyone who wants to study and work toward them and consumers are not scammed because they have the audacity to use gas and electricity in their homes and fill their motor vehicles with fuel.

Lord Goldsmith, you get zero out of ten for originality.

I'm sure many of us would pledge allegiance to Bugs Bunny, if he could help make this country a fairer place.

Am I wrong?

That's all folks!

At last, we've got a TV channel to be proud of, BET- Black Entertainment Television! It's been going for ages in the States and now it's here. I was channel-hopping the other day, which I'm kind of prone to doing, when I reached Channel 209 on Sky. Fantastic!

There have been a number of attempts to launch Black-orientated channels here in Britain with varying degrees of success, but none have been able to handle the challenge of consistently broadcasting a good variety of programming.

I don't follow the music scene as avidly as I used to but there are plenty of debate-based shows on BET to float my boat and I'm told, there are movies, serials and general programming to come.

Check it out. What do you think?

Does it annoy you that this channel is American or just glad to have some competitive programming on air?

The American presidential election seldom fails to hold my attention - since the 1980 Reagan v Carter clash - the first one I remember - up to the current Obama/Clinton/McCain battle, which have sent me furiously reading up on the previous ones!

I'd love to see Obama win it - a man of hope, inspiration, youth and vision. It's so refreshing to see his campaign proceed without going negative. I just can't take 'Hilarious' Clinton seriously - either as a person and particularly not as a president.

I've been aware of her since 1991 but I can't remember seeing her so much as crack a smile up until her campaign began. What, have her lips been sewn together all this time?!

I admire McCain, an ex-prisoner of war and a straight talker, however he seems to be cut from the same cloth as Bush - although this guy can read, string a sentence together and eat a bag of crisps without ending up in A&E!

Come on America, elect Barack because we Brits are forever copying you. Lord knows we need someone with fresh ideas and a positive, rational attitude to shake up the UK political scene.

You don't have to talk about football for long without hearing about the excessive wages the top players are on. However when you see injuries like that poor Eduardo Da Silva of Arsenal sustained the other day, it bears mentioning that there is flip side to taking in all that fame and fortune.

The man's foot was partially severed from his leg at the ankle in a triple break!

As an ex-boxer, I've long had contempt for the way some players fall and roll around like big girl's blouses after the slightest touch but footballers really put themselves on the line each time they cross that white line.

Having said that, do these soccer stars deserve our sympathy or are these injuries just an occupational hazard which every working person faces?

I wonder how many of you were as sickened as I was by convicted murderer Mark Dixie's pathetic defence that he didn't kill model Sally Anne Bowman but that he 'only' had sex with her dead body?

I am so glad that this 'person' has been sent down for 34 years - though it should have been longer. Killing someone in cold blood is bad enough but to sexually violate them afterward is lower than animalistic behaviour, truly evil.

It's cases like this, plus that of Suffolk's prostitute-murdering psycho Steve Wright, which are making me think long and hard about whether the death penalty should be brought back in cases that are as clear-cut as these.

The government has been banging on about being tough on crime for so long and it's high time they backed up the rhetoric with some swift action. Just listen to/ read the comments of Helen Newlove, who has called for the 'frying' of the three thugs who kicked her husband to death last summer.

Recognise this as a by-product of the authorities' wholesale failure to adequately punish lawbreakers - more and more normally rational people, yours truly included, are contemplating the death penalty is the only real solution.

Am I over-reacting or voicing a common view?

Girding myself to endure the stigma attached to backing anything Conservative leader David Cameron comes up with, I have to agree with his call to bring back the infamous 'sus' laws.

I'm tired of the spate of violence blighting the nation and, although stats would suggest that as a black male, I'm more likely to be stopped and searched than most, I am prepared to endure that.