Robert McNeil: Let us put Generation Snowflake to the test

It’s a disgraceful image to try and contemplate.

It could only be brought to mind involuntarily by the shock news that students at Glasgow University are being offered bouncy fortifications to help combat examination stress.

According to top reports, the university’s Students’ Representative Council (SRC) is caught up in a programme of pampering designed to soothe frayed nerves and delicate psyches.

I do not know if these are Marxist revolutionaries or what their problem is.

Certainly, in my student days, there were plenty of Marxist revolutionaries about, but I cannot remember any of them mentioning bouncy castles, even as a metaphor for the rise and fall of capitalism.

I am unclear, too, as to how much of this is the doing of the university authorities themselves and how much the SRC.

If I were not so busy with journalism, I would make more of an effort to get to the truth of the situation. One thing is for certain: something peculiar is going on at our universities.

From what I read, Glasgow has already tried “therapy dogs” to help students calm down.

These, along with mass cry-ins, were also used on American campuses after the election of Derek Trump, if that is the name.

This is Generation Snowflake, as it has been harshly characterised by brutal, right-wing persons whose idea of calming down is to shoot some wild animals then watch a John Wayne film.

I will not condone the latter, though I would agree that bouncy castles are not conducive to decorum in our august institutions of higher education.

I invest that adjective “august” with tones of sepia as today’s institutions instead bring to mind a lurid selfie featuring the principal dressed from head to toe as a character from Disneyland.

Impeccable sources tell me that is how they attend senate meetings nowadays, and I think it deplorable.

To be disingenuously fair, I too hated exams and can remember longing for a time when they’d be over.

Well, they’ve been over for decades now and I find myself pining for them.

Thus mankind: never learning the lesson that the grass is always greener in the area you’ve just vacated to try the other side.

No one has ever finished this column more educated than when they started reading, so bear that in mind as we explore the suggestion that today’s students need to man up.

And when I say man up I don’t mean man up and down on a bouncy castle.

No, to man up means remaining grounded, madam.

And, in saying that, I am aware that I’m speaking as if it is only men who suffer from being wimps, probably because today’s women seem frighteningly strong and a bit, you know, aggressive. No offence, like.

Indeed, a man of my disposition isn’t qualified to tell anyone to man up.

I will be quite candid with you here and confess that, while I like to think of myself as a steady ship serenely sailing through stormy seas, often I’m more of a battered little yellow boat thrown hither and at times yon by huge waves – all cold and arguably wet – that terrify the bejasus out of me.

I am, I fear, prone to becoming over-wrought. So, constitutionally, I understand where Generation Snowflake is coming from and am happy to join with its members in one big slushy snowball. Oh, please don’t throw us!

I should mention that bouncy castles are not the only therapy on offer at Glasgow.

Knitting is also available, but I’ve tried that and found it too technical: I’m more arts than engineering, ken?

Yoga, too, is available to students.

I’ve done yoga for years and can confirm that it does reduce stress – for the duration of the class.

It doesn’t last 10 minutes beyond it. Nothing does. It’s the journey not the destination, they say.

And no meaningful journey starts on a bouncy castle. That is all I have to say. Now, if you will excuse me, this is my stop.