Throw out the Beatrix Potter boxed set. And that boring old Kenneth Grahame book about rats and moles.

I really shouldn't be drawn into these discussions. One of today's newspapers - the smaller, trashier one - reports:

Playing computer games with your children can be just as valuable as reading to them, an expert claims.

It depends on what you mean by 'valuable' and 'expert', I suppose.

Jeffrey Brand, head of media and communications at Bond University ... likens concerns over the effect of computer games to 19th century fears that reading novels was bad for children because it would stop them from playing outdoors.

Jeffrey can liken all he likes. It doesn't mean the comparison is valid. Or even in the same galaxy in terms of logic or common sense. You have to remember he is an academic.

And he believes it's only a matter of time before there is a "canon" of classic computer games, just as there is a literary canon of classics by great writers such as Shakespeare, Austen and Dickens.

Coriolanus' Smashing Cyborg Escapade. The Merry Wives of Grand Theft Auto. Romeo and Mario. Jeffrey Brand warms to his own hare-brained theory:

"We're on the brink," he said. "People are already celebrating a 'games canon' of computer games that are in some way advancing the form. ... You have to go through a trash culture before you arrive at high culture."

You're right about that, Jeffrey.