Youth Serum

George Bernard Shaw said it first: "Youth is such a wonderful time of life it's a shame to waste it on young people."

And why is it wasted? Because so many of them squander all that exuberance and energy by sleeping until lunchtime while the rest of us fight aching bodies and racing thoughts just to get a few hours of sleep during the wee small hours.

Thanks to ground-breaking work being done by Dr Frank Enzyme at Mamre College, a better balance may soon be achieved.

Working in the college's sleep laboratory, he has managed to distil "essence of youth" from sleeping teenagers and expects to be able to produce it in tablet form for the pharmaceutical market.

It will banish insomnia without the numbing side-effects of conventional sleeping tablets.

Dr Enzyme said that motor vehicle insurers are concerned that habitual users of the medication may recover not only their ability to sleep and their zest for life, but also a certain youthful lack of judgment.

Consequently they will increase premiums to a level equal to those paid by young drivers.