The hole truth .sx Laurie Taylor on the art of good taste - or putting bubbles in beer and chocolate .sx It is academic conference time again .sx And good to see that the 1991 British Criminology Conference at the University of York will be holding its plenary session on 'Criminal careers' in the university's Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall .sx Maybe plain Jack , as the Queen now calls him , could find time to offer the assembled delegates a few words on how he himself got started .sx Ten years ago , there would have been a bit of a scandal over a university having links with someone like naughty Jack .sx But not today .sx Nowadays , even philosophers , medieval historians and theologians can be found turning ethical somersaults in their endeavours to attract the attention of business and industry .sx Not easy in a place like York , where the only sizeable local business is devoted to nothing more intellectually resonant than the manufacture of Kit Kat , Aero , Toffee Crisp and Caramac .sx But today's dons are nothing if not entrepreneurial .sx Take Dr Ashley Wilson of York University's Centre for Cell and Tissue Research .sx His speciality is electron microscopes , instruments that can resolve very tiny molecular structures with a depth of focus that gives the images an almost three-dimensional appearance .sx these days , though , they are trained on nothing more substantial than bubbles .sx Bubbles are important at Rowntree .sx They first came to centre stage back in 1935 , when the company invented Aero as a challenge to Cadbury's domination of the chocolate market with its " glass and a half " Dairy Milk bar .sx But the bubbles in Aero are now regarded as pretty gross affairs compared to those Cadbury has managed to squeeze inside its Wispa bar .sx So precise is the Wispa machinery that it can turn out 1,680 bars a minute without a single bubble falling outside the 0.2mm to 0.3mm range .sx What makes bubbles so important is that they help to determine the texture of a foodstuff or drink .sx Now that flavourings are so easily manipulated , now that your bag of crisps , your soft drink , your tub of yoghurt , can so readily be made to taste of almost anything , what matters most is getting the right 'feel in the mouth' .sx Wilson and his team know , for example , that northern brewers want a pint of bitter with a strong , persistent , stable head that will last right down the glass .sx What is more , the head must display 'good lacing' :sx nice rings of foam that stick to the sides of the glass as the pint is drunk .sx To get that sort of head , you have to keep a close check on the protein content of the beer , because proteins form a ring round each bubble and prevent small bubbles suddenly coalescing to form larger ones and also stop the foam simply breaking down and dropping to the bottom of the glass like raindrops on a window pane .sx At this very moment , doctoral theses are being produced on bubbles and foam , on the subtle biological ways in which the microstructure of food and drink can be manipulated so as to alter the degree to which we find them smooth , creamy , chunky or crisp .sx And because it can be presented as 'natural' biological change - not at all like adding all those nasty artificial flavours - it arouses less concern within the 'pure food' lobby .sx Otherwise , we might have seen mass protests this year about our Easter eggs .sx For it seems that Cadbury's Creme Eggs - the most popular egg of all , with sales this Easter of around 165 million - do not begin their lives stuffed with that familiar runny yolk :sx initially the centre is as solid as the chocolate that surrounds it .sx But the rumour in the scientific community is that the insertion of a jolly little natural enzyme ensure that , over time , the sugar breaks down into that sticky gunge that apparently drives the British wild .sx But although Wilson and his team probably know as much about the science of food structures as anyone else on earth , they do not have any idea at all about the type of textures that might make a new brand of chocolate , or beer , or mousse , or ice-cream , an instant hit .sx Texture research is , as they say , " in its infancy " .sx Despite one ingenious attempt to quantify texture by fitting a motor and a pressure sensor to a set of false teeth ( honestly ) , there is apparently no reliable way to know the exact degree of 'smoothness' or 'crunchiness' or 'crispness' we would find acceptable .sx There are , though , a few helpful hints on the subject in semiology .sx Back in 1957 , in Mythologies , Roland Barthes had some words on foam and bubbles ; arguing that , symbolically , they were regarded as luxurious because they were so obviously useless .sx Whether in the form of tulle and muslin , or the bubbles in a film star's bath , they made matter seem so wonderfully " insubstantial" .sx And Gilbert Adair , in Myths and Memories , is magnificent on the texture of fish and chips , on the way they form into a " composite paste that enters the mouth without surprise and without friction , almost as though pre-digested , as though the palate were its proper habitat , the passage a mere formality " .sx What are needed now to add to the sum of human happiness are bio-technical semiologists .sx Rather than analysing existing products , they would work alongside Wilson to produce substances that were texturally attuned to the times :sx perhaps a confection designed for the Labour Party , which starts off crisp , but , with the first bite , collapses into a gooey mush ; or even a postmodernist chocolate bar that would juxtapose different kinds of substances with wildly different viscosities .sx And if Rowntree or Cadbury want any help on the vocabulary of textures - ways of getting beyond such ubiquitous terms as " chunky" , " smooth" , or " creamy " - they could always go looking for the man who shared my table in a Dublin pub some years ago .sx " What do they taste like , " I asked as he religiously bent over his plate of oysters .sx " Don't taste like anything very much .sx It's not a question of taste really .sx " " What then ?sx " " More texture .sx " " Texture ?sx " " That's right .sx " " So what is texture like ?sx " He held up the shell to his mouth , extended his lower lip , and gave a deep slurping suck .sx " Like God's come , " he said , ecstatically .sx Flesh and blood .sx Father has left the family , but he has been replaced by the ideal macho man .sx Jeremy Seabrook on the decline of parenting .sx The exuberant and unambiguous images of machismo displayed in footage of the Gulf war , and reinforced by the popular press , have given new prominence to stereotypes of men that have never been far below the surface in our culture , but which had been eclipsed in recent years by a milder imagery of maleness .sx The older version was always present , of course , transmitted by films , videos , television , comics , magazines .sx Indeed , these artefacts have become a powerful agent of socialisation for many young men , particularly those whose lives have been without male role models because of the absence , desertion , or simple indifference , of flesh-and-blood fathers .sx Ideal types , filtered through culture , are the more effective for being extreme - examples impossible to emulate .sx But they do embody values and norms that exert a powerful influence on the course of adolescent lives .sx They offer promptings , inspiration , even a sense of identity , to many confused adolescents .sx They allow for a sort of do-it-yourself masculinisation , enabling individuals to acquire responses and characteristics no longer available to them through direct experience , but which reach them nonetheless , over and above the deficient or missing beings who nominally occupy the father role .sx With the growing number of fragmented families and single parents ( mostly mothers , naturally ) , young men are often left to fend for themselves , scavenging scraps of male identity where they can .sx One has only to cast an eye on the picture-covered walls of young people's rooms , the images , photos , pin-ups , icons :sx all of a barely human perfection , rarely known personally , a beckoning , seemingly tangible abstraction .sx Of course , these powerful images are the property of major industrial conglomerates - the communications , entertainment or pop industries , purveyors of fantasy to the people .sx What they offer is a form of industrialised parenting , an area of rich rewards to those prepared to invest in it .sx This is perhaps why so many parents admit themselves powerless in the presence of their children's development .sx " I don't know where he gets it from .sx " " God knows who he mixes with .sx " " They don't listen to me .sx " " You can't tell them anything .sx " In such phrases they record the passing of their function to those so much better qualified to do it .sx The traditional male iconography , then , has been modified somewhat by the decorative androgynes of the pop world and soap opera .sx These allow for certain embellishments and departures from the fundamental stereotype , as is only to be expected where freedom of choice is paramount .sx But what relief when the traditional images can reassert themselves with such vigour and force .sx No wonder army recruiting offices have reported such a surge of applicants , impelled by a media-crafted resuscitation of models of military heroics .sx For all the proclaimed dedication of the Conservatives to family values , it is clear that this is mere window-dressing , an appeal to irrevocable nostalgias .sx It could not be more remote from the experience of millions of young people .sx The family of Conservative mythology is widely recognised to be a figment ; its personnel embalmed , even mummified lay-figures ; an archaism , stranded , ironically , by the realities of an extreme individualist ideology , of which the Conservatives are themselves the most ardent promoters .sx Individualism does not obediently confine itself to the realm of economic endeavour :sx it busily invades social life , too , rearranging relationships , fracturing and dispersing those cosy family units that the Conservatives claim to cherish .sx The truth is that there is only one thing they cherish even more highly , and that is the profits to be made out of the dissolution of the family .sx Capitalist industrial society long ago destroyed more spacious and ample family structures .sx Reduced to its nuclear state , the family has become depleted and claustrophobic .sx It is too cramped ; one or two individuals - mostly women - must bear impossible burdens ; feelings and passions have insufficient scope to express themselves without inflicting great damage on the small number of people it contains .sx Should it surprise us if so many families collapse in anger , violence and recrimination ?sx It may be that the nuclear family is destined to follow the path of the extended family into extinction ; if so , the primary cause of this benign evolution will be found in the same agent of those earlier dissolutions .sx Already one quarter of households in Britain consist of a single person ; this is forecast to rise to one in three early in the next century .sx An executive of Ford UK admitted some time ago that the break-up of families benefited car sales :sx it is no longer a question of who will have the car ; each must have one .sx No wonder the Conservatives project themselves as friends of a superseded model of happy families .sx Theirs is a major work of concealment , and they set about it with the vigour and high moral tone of which long practice has made them supreme masters .sx Parenting has become far too important to be left to mere parents , unqualified personnel .sx It is far too arduous a task to be undertaken by individuals in the vast division of labour within rich western societies .sx The handing over of the raising of children to experts and professionals is only half the story ; the other half is the role of the television as childminder and instructor , the function of the advertising industry as solicitous mother , monitoring their needs and wants , and the shopping malls as consoling universal nanny .sx The usurping of these functions is reflected in popular discussion of family relationships .sx How many young men talk of their father with regret or contempt .sx " I never knew him .sx " " He was never there .sx " " He didn't have time for me .sx " " He pissed off .sx " " He wasn't interested .sx " " He didn't care .sx "