Leading article: Teenage kicks

If Hallowe'en and the High School Prom were not transatlantic borrowings enough, we are now seeing the rise and rise of Spring Break – with one signal difference. In our three-term university system, it has been transferred to summer. The weather might also have something to do with it, and the stratospheric cost of tickets for alternative attractions, such as rock festivals.

The season's biggest gathering is set to be this weekend on the Gower peninsula, with upwards of 20,000 students. But Newquay in Cornwall is another favourite, with the beach, as it is for Americans, the essential backdrop. When the organisers insist that the British version is more harmless hedonism and less unmitigated debauchery than the all-American Spring Break, this would be hard to believe, were it not that Spring Break is about doing everything that is forbidden, or illegal, on campus. British Summer Break is more like the continuation of student frolics in another place: by the seaside and, with luck, in the sun.

As with Hallowe'en and the Prom, there is money to be made (and spent), and there are hotel rooms and restaurants to be filled in the downtime before the schools break up. With such method in the madness, turn your back on Ascot, and let the real fun begin.