Tween rock and a hard place

Hannah Montana doesn't actually exist but she is real enough to sell $2,000 pop concert tickets at the age of 15.

For those without 'tween-agers' who have missed the phenomenon of Disney's Hannah Montana television series, here is a guide: Hannah is the show's title character, the secret pop star alter-ego of unpopular schoolgirl Miley Stewart, who is played by 15-year-old actress/singer Miley Cyrus, whose real name is Destiny Hope Cyrus.

The dark heart of this story is that whatever her hopes, young Miley seems destined to be the next train wreck of teenage stardom. The paps are riveted while upmarket media pundits ponder the legacy of Lolita, the novel of forbidden love which created the prototype of sexual precociousness.

Hannah Montana debuted less than two years ago. The soundtrack of the first season sold 4 million CDs and now her tour 'Miley Cyrus As Hannah Montana, Best of Both Worlds' is selling like the Stones and Police. She earned $3.5m last year. There is a singing doll and a DVD game.

Late last year the headlines screamed when Miley 'broke up' with her 'teenage love', fellow kiddie-rock star Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers. Failed love has been followed by Cyrus's first scandal. Photographs of her frolicking with a girlfriend and then sharing spit with a licorice sweet were leaked on the internet to howls of 'lesbian'. Miley protested: "It was just two girls on a sleepover."

Dark clouds are gathering when a girl says this: "The only people that you really have, I learned, are your family because they love you no matter what."

Parental love? Destiny Hope is the daughter of one-hit country and western singer Billy Ray Cyrus (left), who plays her Dad on the TV show and is also, inevitably, her 'manager'.

A father delivering his two tweens to a pop concert last week asked a cop outside the stadium where he should drop them. The cop replied that if he dropped them anywhere, he would be arrested and charged with child abandonment. He's not the only Dad who should be arrested. ·