While the feckless, brain-dead youths inside someone else's car might be having a whale of a time, it is absolutely no fun for anyone else.

Add the word cemetery to the word joyriding and you have the front page headline that screamed out from the newsstands on Tuesday.

Anyone who has been reading this column for the last year or so will be fully aware of my feelings towards those who vandalise graveyards or desecrate them in any other way.

The "craze" that sprung up about a year or so ago appeared to have died down, although the briefest of glimpses at the cemetery off Rossendale Road will tell you that it will take more than a bit of TLC to sort some of them out.

While it is sad that some of the graves there have been allowed to fall into a state of disrepair, not everyone has family or friends still alive and in the area to do just that.

But it is even sadder that some have simply been vandalised, the perpetrators clearly showing that they cannot even understand the word respect, never mind spell it!

What gets to me most, however, is the fact that the mindless yobs who do things like "joyride" around a cemetery causing untold damage will always find someone else to blame.

In this case it will probably be the unscrupulous shopkeeper who sold them the strong lager that gave them the "courage" to go out cause havoc in what should be an area of calm and tranquility.

If not, it will be the fault of the council for not providing suitable alternative activities for the idiots involved.

If all else fails, no doubt, the poor owner of the vehicle involved will be blamed for actually leaving it on site.

But never, ever – or so it all-too-often seems – will those who actually got behind the wheel, or encouraged someone else to do so, hold their hands up and take their punishment.

I know how many people make daily, weekly, monthly or even annual trips to the cemetery for all the right reasons.

These are not places that should have to be locked at night.

But the way things are going with some of the morons we have to share our town and our lives with, it will probably not be long before there are even security guards on the cemetery gates.