OPINION/TONY ALLWRIGHT:NOT LONG ago Britain's £12 million a year National Children's Bureau (NCB) issued 384 pages of guidelines for kindergartens, entitled Young Children and Racial Justice, available for a hefty £24.
Buried among its many strictures is, according to the Daily Telegraphearlier this month, a directive to clamp down on three-year-olds should they choose to reveal what nasty little racists they are by, for example, saying "yuk" to foreign food that they don't like the look of, because this apparently means they don't like the associated foreigners.
Neither do racist babies with their "name-calling, casual thoughtless comments and peer group relationships" escape the NCB's righteous ire.
Nurseries are, quite rightly, advised to report the horrid little tykes to the local council who will presumably administer appropriate punishments and maintain lifelong records for the protection of victim minority groups far into the future.
After all, who wants to hire someone who has been documented as a racist ever since he or she was a toddler?
For some reason, however, Beijing has now moved in the opposite direction by kow-towing to grown-up sports fans of similar racist tendencies.
These Olympic-watchers would be the kind of despicable xenophobes who don't hesitate to say "yuk" to a casserole of Jack Russell or a Doberman sirloin, thereby expressing their contempt of Orientals, particularly Chinese and Koreans, for whom dog meat delicacies are part of their rich cultural heritage.
But rather than condemn these odious racists, the Beijing tourism politburo is pandering to them and has, according to a recent report in this newspaper, issued an advisory notice admonishing restaurants and hotels to remove dog meat from their menus for the duration of the games.
They are thereby emulating the grovelling behaviour of the Seoul city council during the Olympics in that city back in 1988, when dog meat was likewise removed from the city's menus for the same fawning reason.
The one part of China where, Olympic games notwithstanding, dog meat is already banned and has been for more than a century is Hong Kong, thanks to the British colonialists.
Many might see this as a further example of racist suppression of wonderful native customs in the name of white imperialism, but actually it's not.
The reason the British rulers banned dog meat was because of the manner of slaughtering the dog.
In order to ensure the meat is tender, succulent and sweet, the unfortunate creature must be beaten slowly to death with sticks, his heart valiantly pumping blood and adrenaline to the last around his rapidly bruising body.
For some reason, the British found this practice sickening, and by now so do the Hong Kong Chinese. So if you are at the Olympics (which, as I argued in these pages back in May, I hope you aren't), know that any dislike of dog meat is due to your moral superiority rather than your xenophobic tendencies.
Unlike those racist little brats saying "yuk" to a plate of curry across the water in Blighty.
At least we don't have any of those over here.
Do we?
• Tony Allwright is an engineering and industrial safety consultant, and blogs on international and national issues - www.tallrite.com/blog.htm