I'M HAVING what you might call a mid-life "Christis". That's the thing men get when they hit 33 and realise: "If I was Jesus, I would have been crucified by now. And what have I achieved? Nothing!"

Mind you, if I was Jesus, the Bible would have a lot more swearing in it. Which is a shame.

Anyway, I've just "celebrated" this minor 33-year milestone. It's a birthday I share with King Juan Carlos of Spain, the top hat and the Nazi Party, both of which were created on this day. If that's not cause to celebrate, what is? Humph.

Now, I think I could be forgiven for slumping into a mild depression about this. Let's face it, who wants to boast about dull Spanish monarchs, tall headgear and ridiculous politics?

But friends were eager to help. The other half kindly pointed me in the direction of a book called Late Achievers: Famous People Who Succeeded Late in Life, by Mary Ellen Snodgrass.

It's an inspiring book containing biographies of 40 people, who, as the title suggested, started late. Nevertheless, they all managed to make something of their lives. As a result I've drawn up a New Year's resolution list par excellence. Granted, assassinating a South American dictator might be a bit ambitious, but cat juggling is in there too, and I can always get my hands on a cat easily enough.

But the point is this - today is the only January 11 2006 I'm going to get, so I'd better make it count.

There's only one minor hiccup - other people getting in the way.

Especially those people who conspire to try to ruin your day and your plans by being obnoxious, rude, unfriendly, unpleasant or plain and simple burgling your house and scratching the paintwork on your car.

The very same people who are the targets of Tony Blair's "respect" plans, unveiled to Parliament yesterday.

If you missed it, he basically said the good people needed to reclaim the streets from the bad ones.

This means parents are going to be called to task with 'parenting orders' to keep them and their kids in check; bad families will be evicted from their homes if they don't straighten themselves out; and there could soon be a new system of fines for anti-social yobs.

The timing could not be more relevant. One edition of this paper on Monday carried the story of a gang of five teens who were responsible for 80 crimes a month in the Daisyfield area of Blackburn.

That was followed by a story yesterday about police being fed up with vandalism in Burnley - and their outburst came on the back of more than 100 incidents of criminal damage in a week.

Now there are millions of theories flying around about why we supposedly live in a lawless society with feral kids running amok.

Nightmare parents take a lot of the blame. Some even question whether it's actually all that bad - after all, did we not have vandalism, stabbings and burglaries in the genteel 1950s?

I think the truth is somewhere in between. But there can't be any harm in making rubbish mums and dads a bit better, so let's crack on with Tony's "respect" plans.

Then maybe I can crack on with saving the world.