"NOW girls, I want you all to be sexy!"

The phrase would be perfectly fine if it came from a friend, while getting ready for a big night out. But oh no, this sentence, scarily enough, came from my drama teacher (while swinging her hips and pouting a little).

Of course, in the name of acting this is fine, but for a while now I've been noticing the current adult trend of trying to be "hip", or "groovy". Well, for the sake of all self-respecting adults, I'm going to kindly hint that it is not a good idea.

Obviously, parents are the worst. I can just about deal with the teachers and their "funny" jokes, but parents are around 24/7.

Last week, my dad, who incidentally has had a sense of humour bypass, kindly informed me that the "Atomic Puppies" (chortle, chortle) were number one. Worse still, when casually chatting about a song to my sisters, my ultra-cool mother butted in to tell me that the song was Radio Two's song of the week (as selected by wrinkly Terry Wogan).

And it doesn't end with music - all mobiles in our household are permanently locked away due to over-eager adult eyes that are drawn to text messages detailing plans of sabotage in chemistry.

This, of course, leads to stories of "I remember when I was such a rebel in school, once I broke a bunsen burner and didn't even own up to it...." Come on - we really couldn't care less.

Letting parents out around our friends is when they feel they're at their peak of cool. What a great opportunity to show off my knowledge of all things "in", they think, while they try to talk to my baffled friends about "that young Robert Williams, he's a bit of a poser isn't he?"

So please, parents, we don't particularly like you when you're being old and boring but we'd prefer that than to have you ranting on about how you love Hollyoaks far more than Coronation Street.

Don't take it personally - it's only because we're secretly worried you'll get cooler than we are...

Updated: 10:35 Wednesday, October 09, 2002