Just anybody can be a hero

Wimps? Surely some mistake, I hear you say. The people who fulfilled that nation's manifest destiny and conquered the wilderness were certainly not wimps.

Sorry folks, but I think that a substantial few were indeed just that.

The journey from St Joseph would probably have started uneventfully, with maybe just the occasional thrown horseshoe or lost wheel. The real dangers would have presented themselves once the prairie schooners were snaking along the valleys of the Platte, Powder or Arkansas rivers.

At this stage, you may well ask yourselves why I appear to be so familiar with Americana. Well, dang me, it sure ain't no mystery. A 50s boyhood spent immersed in every Western comic, annual or novel that could be lassoed and high-tailed back to my hideout would provide a lifetime's supply of frontier gibberish.

So where were we? Ah, yes. What happened when wagon scout Flint McCullough suddenly rose up on his horse and shouted... INJUNS!

The wagons would form a circle, the menfolk with shootin' irons at the ready.

With ears and eyes straining for a sighting of the foe, this would have been the moment of intense crisis that many a 19th Century Ward Bond had been trained to confront.

Just imagine the tension as the Arapaho braves crept through the long grass, drawing ever nearer. No, stupid - they didn't attack by riding round and round the circled wagons, presenting perfect targets.

So the assault on the settlers is about to begin, when suddenly an anguished cry comes from the lead wagon. It's enough to terrify even the most combative Comanche, nasty Navajo or surly Sioux...

"Jest look at ma hay-yr, son-of-a-bitch. And where's my goddayyy-amned lippy!"

You've guessed. I've been watching The Frontier House.

And judging by the collection of girls' blouses who have volunteered to recreate the experiences of a group of settlers during the 1880s, it's hard to imagine how the East, never mind the West, was won.

The women are more concerned with their warpaint, never mind the hostilities. And as for that chap who was upset about not being able to blast furry creatures to kingdom - come - well, did no one tell him that his predecessors had already done such a good job that there were hardly any critturs left?

As the latest manifestation of voyeur television, the series has at least provided us with something a shade more interesting than the usual collection of losers and wannabes now routinely paraded before us by the increasingly moronic "quality" channels.

B ut it's good to swap the sweaty socks and testosterone of Big Brother for a subject that does, at least, have some historical relevance.

Nevertheless, I still wouldn't want to be alone behind the stockade walls with any of those superficial people and their insufferable children.

And speaking of gruesome, that's a reasonably apt description of the recent Lads Army series, in which a group of present-day young men were given a taste of National Service, 1950s style.

There must have been quite a few 60-something men who nodded grimly and thought to themselves how some of today's young men could do with a dose of discipline. And they'd be right.

For today's young men have far too much energy. With no current youth movement as such, and chances for sport receding as more and more playing fields become housing estates, much of that pent-up aggression finds expression in vandalism and violence.

But National Service is not the answer. However, some form of community service, as they have in Europe, needs introducing in Britain. For thousands, university is but a waste of time. Far better to be in an apprenticeship or working on a project.

From time to time, I have wondered how I would have coped with National Service. The year I became eligible, had it still been in force - 1967 - was not a time one normally associates with images of square-bashing, bawling sergeants and psychopathic corporals.

Hardly. Hippy summer of love, aged 18, with a good job and a wage packet to blow every weekend. Kiss me sergeant-major? No thanks, I've got my eye on the Jane Shrimpton double by the bandstand with a dress that looks more like a large belt...

Lads Army, The Frontier House... oh yes, The Trench too. That was the re-creation of conditions on the Western Front in 1916. Everything was there, remember - the cold, damp, lack of sleep, poor rations, rats as big as bloomin' cats and endless noise.

And apart from the footling, minor detail that nobody was in any danger of actually having their head blown off, this is what it must have been like. I don't think.

These are sad, sad times. For our lives are now so monotonous and predictable that we must seek adventure, and all the challenges it brings, by becoming someone else. Frontiersman, National Serviceman, First World War soldier, pop star... take your pick.

This is conveyor belt society. We grab another fantasy to shove into our overflowing shopping bags. Dressing up in our period costumes, we pose for the photograph looking suitably stern, tough or dissolute.

In this land of make-believe, thanks to a bottomless dressing-up box, anybody can be anybody, absolutely anyone. Except ourselves. Who would want to be me, little old ordinary me?

Thanks to television-on-the-cheap, all of us can fulfil Andy Warhol's prophecy at any time of the day or night. Fill in the form, attend the audition. If it's pop stardom, be prepared for complete humiliation from some slimeball impresario just as hungry for his 15 minutes of fame.

But the tragedy of the rampant fantasy-hunger that seems to have gripped the Western World is that it all goes to prove how empty our lives have become.

People long to fight imaginary wars, conquer wildernesses and achieve showbiz stardom because the real-life opportunities no longer exist.

Time has actually stood still. Existence itself seems nothing more than a part of the Memory Industry.

So it's no wonder that woman in The Frontier House mourned the absence of her lipstick. For you've got to look your best. You never know who you will meet on the great film set that is someone else's imagination.