Instead, it is a matter-of-fact scene of cruel Renaissance life.
Thankfully, it never happened to me, but I know people who have been victims of this and who still bear a grudge against the cruel or tactless grown-up in question.
While Labour's MP for Newcastle East and former Cabinet Minister, Nick Brown, declared that the idea was simply "cruel and stupid", in January the party was actively calling for the Government's overall benefit cap to differentiate between regions based on the fact that someone in the north would need less than someone in London.
He clearly has great fun satirising the casually cruel, pettily incestuous world of poetry in which self-absorption is the keynote.
But was it cruel to deck animals out in jewellery?
Compassion for animals in laboratories is not "sentimentality"; it goes hand-in-hand with compassion for humans, both of which would be served by leaving cruel and demonstrably unnecessary monkey experiments behind in favour of truly humane and human-relevant science.
Labour is committed to abolishing the "cruel" bedroom tax.
By a cruel coincidence the Dail resumed business just 24 hours after the so-called "troika" from the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund rode into town.
Their squawking, cruel faces and white-streaked bombing runs had me devising a deadly version of the seaside amusement arcade's shooting gallery.
Allan Hogarth, Amnesty's UK head of policy and government affairs, said: "Amnesty has serious concerns about Saudi Arabia's justice system, given its use of the death penalty, the prevalence of torture in detention, and its use of cruel and degrading punishment.
In the end you already know how the story ends be kind, not cruel, and please – sit tight on the spoilers as a gesture of respect to fellow blogans and bloganistas.
