Puff the Magic Dragon

What a ridiculous and toxic miasma obscures the current debate on smoking. Yesterday, the government’s Health Improvement Bill, which sets out its proposals for a ban, was delayed. Apparently the prohibitionists – health secretary Patricia Hewitt and her ally Tessa Jowell – are being dogged by “Doc” John Reid and Jack “˜Man o” Straw, who wish to engineer a compromise allowing for “smoking pubs” that don’t serve food.

Some cynics suggest that Reid – an ex-health secretary himself – wants the issue fudged because he’s worried Labour would lose working-class votes with a ban. This from the man who said: “˜People in lower socio-economic categories have very few pleasures in life and one is smoking.” A statement worthy of a duchess contemplating the “˜plebs” through the wrong end of her lorgnette.

Or maybe Reid is still creeping out to the Houses of Parliament bike sheds for a quick drag, and feels it would be hypocritical and against his own proclivities to back a total ban. Whatever. The truth is that on this issue the government is sucking wearily on a fag end. The tipping point has been reached in England, and whatever the tobacco industry and various, so-called “˜libertarians” say, a blanket ban on smoking in public places would be generally supported and universally accepted.

The majority of adults now don’t smoke, and of the remainder who do, many would gratefully seize on the opportunity a public ban afforded to give up. The ban has worked in Ireland – in Italy too. If Reid thinks sealed “smoking rooms” on licensed premises will keep smokers ticking his box, then he’s never been in one. I have in New York, and after emerging I felt like a smoked whelk.

I myself am still a smoker. I smoke cigarettes, I smoke large Havana cigars, I smoke calabashes loaded with the strongest shags I can lay my yellowing fingers on. So long as the government aren’t going to ban me from lighting up in the street or the privacy of my own home I support a total ban. Drug laws – and nicotine is a drug – should be based on what people actually want to do, not on what politicians want them to do. Most people neither want to smoke in pubs and restaurants, nor breathe other people’s smoke. Go figure, Doctor John.

Bird Brained

Blanket bans on bird imports, warnings on cooking poultry and eating raw eggs. Stockpiling of vaccines and the dithering of ministers as the avian flu epidemic begins to take on the lineaments of true disaster. How reminiscent of the run-up to Foot and Mouth and BSE it all seems. In neither of those earlier crises was the government’s response seen as anything but an unmitigated disaster: animals were needlessly slaughtered, farmers went to the wall. The FaM outbreak wasn’t contained at all – and the repercussions of BSE are still being played out. And those were diseases that only affected animals! Think how much worse it will be with a virus whose true goal in life is pullulating through human lungs. I’m intentionally personifying HN15 (or its erstwhile variants), because viruses are creatures too, and this particular virus hasn’t evolved, yet, so that it can be transmitted between human carriers. As things stand, all the stockpiling of antiviral drugs does is push up the share prices of Big Pharma. While all the control measures are doing is to slow down the rate of mutation at tremendous cost.

I have another strategy: do nothing. Let it rip. The strain of HN15 that is human-transmissible may not be as lethal as feared. Indeed, all the measures aimed at blocking it may only make it wilier. Once the new flu strain emerges we can concentrate resources on ameliorating its symptoms and creating an effective vaccine – until it exists, we should do nothing. As the medics have been quick to point out, these flu pandemics normally travel around the world as regularly as Tony Blair. And if he and his political pals can’t even abolish a glaring human problem like global poverty, how the hell are they going to defeat an enemy they can’t even see?

Tres Chic

To Paris for the weekend, where I have to counter the demands of my two companions: a four-year-old and a 15-year-old. The little boy is satisfied by a toy bought in the Gallerie Lafayette and a trip to the Jardin D’Acclimatation, a rather cosy theme park in the Bois de Boulogne. The big boy is a rather trickier proposition. No, the Musee D’Orsay doesn’t enthuse him – nor does Rodin’s sculpture garden. He’ll submit to a trot around Sacre Coeur and Les Invalides – but it doesn’t exactly float his boat. No, it transpires that what he considers the height of cool, is sitting on the terrace of the Café Flor, sipping a naughty demi pression, and watching the chic crowds troll along the Boulevard Saint Germain. And you know what – he’s absolutely right.

Come il Faut

To Home House for the launch of Peter York’s new book, ˜Dictators’ Homes. The club itself is irrefutably tasteful, the chattering guests are witty and well-turned out. I asked York, the avatar of all style pundits, whether any of the dictators in the book had good taste, and he conceded that Hitler’s Berghof – the Nazi leader’s mountain retreat in the Austrian Alps – was surprisingly so, albeit in an inflated, kitschy manner. In truth, York’s book struck me as a little too tasteful: well written, beautifully designed. The subject really demands a collaboration between the art director of Zoo magazine and Andrew Morton.

26.10.05

The Ebony Tower

There seems, at last, to be a replacement for the “Passion from Protein” man who for so many years promenaded the West End inveighing against the sexual depravity provoked by eggs and cheese. Nowadays I often see an elderly Afro-Caribbean man on Oxford Street, who declaims his own brand of Christian gospel using a curious portable PA system: a tiny speaker hung round his neck like sonic bling, a microphone rasped by his mobile lips. On Saturday this peripatetic preacher came towards me through massed crowds of frenzied consumers: “Life is but a dream!” he squawked with a Jamaican inflection. “An’ dis is not your real ‘ome!” How sage, I thought, how just. “In the midst of life,” he continued, “we are in debt!” Sometimes, I reflected, the truest revelations are quite unintentional.

The Collector

A curious phenomenon in Trafalgar Square needs remarking on. Since the installation of Marc Quinn’s monumental statue of the nude and pregnant disabled woman Alison Lapper, there’s been an avian redistribution. Formerly General Napier, Sir Henry Havelock, George IV, and even the Big N himself, all had an even share of the available pigeons and seagulls. However, these bronzed oldies cannot compete with the cool marble form of youthful Ms Lapper, and the birds, doubtless mistaking her for some particularly cuddly looking cliff, have deserted their old perches. Now the Dead White Males stand alone, while the defiantly alive and considerably whiter Ms Lapper has an entire flock clustered in her rounded lap. It’s an arresting image, and further confirmation — if any were needed — of why Quinn’s statue was such a great choice for the fourth plinth.

The Magus

To the Barbican for the Michael Clark Company’s production of O, a ballet that reworks Balanchine and Stravinsky in radical and entrancing ways. Clark remains the doyenne of modern British choreographers — his work leaps from the prissy precincts and strikes bold poses which all can appreciate. Certainly the audience were as diverse a bunch as it was possible to imagine in a London theatre. Sitting in front of me were a couple of dumpy punks, sporting so much face-metal that I was amazed they could keep their heads upright. But they could, and this meant that I saw the op-art set through the pinkish haze of a couple of brightly dyed mohican tufts. Meanwhile, next to me were a pair of fearsomely erect ladies of a certain age, who looked as if they might once have shared a barre with Margot Fonteyn. Clark’s company features non-standard body types as well — tall women dancers and squat men — so audience and performers were engaged in an arresting pas-de-deux.

Axon tangle

Sue Axon, a Mancunian mother of two teenage daughters, is taking on the Government in the High Court over its guidance allowing doctors to provide confidential abortion advice and contraception to young people under 16 without their parents’ knowledge. At first glance there seems reasonable grounds for her challenge: surely every parent has a right to know what is happening to their children, especially when it’s a vital health issue of this kind? Mrs Axon is basing her case on the Human Rights charter, which in the last few years has become a versatile stick in the hands of protesting litigants. She claims breach of her human rights — while lawyers on behalf of the Department of Health will argue that breaking the children’s patient confidentiality would be in breach of theirs.

The case is essentially “Gillick Lite”: a rerun of the Christian campaigner’s unsuccessful move, 20 years ago, to prevent underage girls being prescribed the pill without parental consent. But whereas Victoria Gillick demanded consent, Sue Axon only wishes knowledge. I don’t wish to impugn Mrs Axon’s motives, although her own guilt and regret over an abortion she once had seem a poor basis on which to pressure for a change in the law.

The truth is that the current guidelines have sufficient flexibility for doctors and health professionals to breach patient confidentiality where there is a serious threat to a child’s health. Any 15-year-old girl seeking an abortion will be encouraged to speak to their parents about it, and if she absolutely refuses the doctor must make every effort to help her find an adult mentor to offer support. As things stand, the large majority of underage girls seeking abortions do tell their parents in advance.

It’s tough for the Mrs Axons of this world to take it on board, but for young people having sex is something they don’t want their parents to know too much about. Curiously young people take very much the same view of parental sex! Our sex lives are conducted for the most part in private, and regardless of our age that’s the way we like to keep it. The problem is that this quite reasonable need for privacy shades imperceptibly into the secrecy surrounding self-destructive and high-risk behaviour among the young, whether that be drink, drugs or sex. But the harsh facts are that if a child substantially under 16 engages in unprotected sex it is almost certainly too late for her parents to reimpose control — especially through the agency of a nanny state.

Britain currently has the highest proportion of teenage pregnancies in Europe. The Mrs Axons of the world seem to believe that this is because of our enlightened and child-centred approach to the consequences of underage sex. Instead they should concentrate their efforts on the social, cultural and emotional pressures which lead girls — and boys — to such precocious rutting. If Mrs Axon did so she might be surprised by the common ground she shares with her ostensible opponents.

09.11.05

The Strong Arm of the Law

I’ve given Sir Ian Blair the benefit of the doubt since he became Commissioner of the Met. I’ve liked his insistence on community policing and his zero tolerance for racism and homophobia in the force. However, the fact that he’s thick as thieves with his namesake should really have alerted me to his true colours. As last night’s Reith Lecture displayed, Sir Ian is that most curious of creatures – a wholly political animal who understands little of politics.

I daresay the prestigious lecture – the first to be given by a senior policeman for 30 years – was fixed up before the Government’s defeat on 90-day detention for terror suspects, but I’m equally certain that Sir Ian saw it as another tactical move in his masterplan. Knocked back on this massive arrogation of police powers, Sir Ian remains unrepentant about proposing and then lobbying for it. He muses that it’s the public’s responsibility to launch a debate on the “shoot-to-kill” guidelines, which led to the death of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell tube station in July. He asks us Londoners whether we want a July 6 police force – 90% unarmed, on the beat – or a July 7 police force – hi-tech untouchables who will zap the baddies.

Such apparent openness by Britain’s senior police officer is just that: apparent. On the very day that it was disclosed that de Menezes was shot with dum-dum bullets (ordinance so lethal it’s outlawed under the Geneva Convention), it’s a little crass for the head of the Met to tell the public we’re failing in our civic duty. The truth is that no one knew anything about the shoot-to-kill policy before July 22 except the police themselves. And while we’re at it, why is it taking so long for the IPCC inquiry into this killing? On the one hand Sir Ian asks Parliament for three months to browbeat terrorist suspects, while on the other he can’t get his own officers to ‘fess up in four.

No, Sir Ian may have our best interests at heart but he also has a steely grip on his own. He wants to be good cop and bad cop at the same time. He’ll play to whichever gallery he’s facing in his drive for more arrogation of power. With the upcoming reorganisation of constabularies, the Met more than ever will be the leader of the police pack, and its top dog will be that much closer to heading some kind of national force. The only kind of transparency Sir Ian is promoting is entirely inadvertent: we can see his motives crystal-clear.

Defeater of the Flux

According to the Queen – or at any rate her speech writer – the Christian Church speaks “uniquely” to our need for meaning in an uncertain world. Opening the General Synod this week, the Queen gave a rousing defence of her position as Supreme Governor of the established Church, striking down those who feel such a status is incompatible with being the Head of State of a multi-faith society. So far as I can see, the established Church has had nigh on half a millennium to convince us of its unique insight. In 16th century London less than 30% of the population were churchgoers – despite nonattendance being fineable – and now this incentive has been removed hardly anyone wants to go at all. Far from representing timeless verities, if the Church of England has any virtue it’s that it’s cut its moral garb to suit the times. It’s changed its creed, rewritten its Bible, and moved to accept female and gay priests. At the rate it’s going it’ll have to disestablish itself on moral grounds alone, and the sooner this happens the better.

Destroyer of Stereotypes

On Tuesday I had a brief but intense conversation about Christianity in fifth-century North Africa. No, I wasn’t at the General Synod along with the Queen, but at Goldsmiths College in New Cross. And this wasn’t a gathering of learned divines, but a celebration of the work of an astonishing project called Open Book. Set up by Joe Baden four years ago, Open Book aims to get people from offending, mental health and addiction backgrounds into further education. So far they’ve managed to do just this with almost 100 students. The man who told me he was boning up on Medieval Latin so he could do a doctoral thesis on St Augustine had been a drug addict for 30 years, in and out of jail. I also spoke to a former armed robber who’s doing a sociology degree and a playwright on day release from HMP Ford whose work has been commended by the Royal Court Theatre. I wish that the people who are so blinkered about the possibility of rehabilitating offenders could see the work organisations such as Open Book do. Yes, of course criminals need to be punished – but by educating ex-offenders we help them earn a living, pay their debt to society, and stop them from creating more victims.

Nurse! The screens!

To the Almeida, where the statuesque Ronni Ancona, together with a fine cast of British comedy actors, brought tremendous vigour to Moliere’s The Hypochondriac. This was high farce played with low cunning, and Moliere’s satire on the credulousness of patients and the finagling of their doctors felt as fresh today as when it was bottled 250-odd years ago. Not so fresh was the set, which consisted in part of some 40 jars of preserved excreta. On television or in an art gallery such a display would have doubtless provoked outrage, but us theatregoers are above all that – especially in the circle.

16.11.05

Foggy Weather

We no longer suffer the ‘London particulars’ which up until the Clean Air Acts bit in the 1960s laid up tens of thousands every winter with acute respiratory illness; instead we have a strange miasma of hypochondria which descends upon the metropolis once the mercury begins to fall. This season’s outbreak has been set off by anxiety about bird flu. Knowing full well that the standard flu vaccine is no protection against its deadly viral cousin, and never having had a flu jab before in their lives, flocks of ‘worried well’ have descended on their GPs intent on a shot in the wing.

None of them is in the high-risk categories of the over-65s or those with illnesses that compromise their immune systems, instead they’ve ligged the vaccine on the grounds that they’re ‘carers’ – ie ‘parents’ – when this designation should only apply to those whose primary role is to tend to the chronically sick and disabled.

Now the doctors are aggrieved. For years now they’ve been struggling to get people to take up the flu jab – so they couldn’t believe their luck when they looked out and saw the waiting room was packed. They accuse the Government of not stockpiling enough vaccine, while Patricia Hewitt slates them for chucking hypodermics about as if they were drunken darts players.

Really, it’s the age-old spectacle of the proverbial bald men fighting over a hair-regenerating comb. There are two problems with the NHS that are continually being conflated. One is the general perception that the speedy advance of medical technology can cure us from every ill, the other is our profound unwillingness to pay more taxes for an improved service. The spectacle of the Prime Minister being given a rough ride this week by the Public Accounts Committee over his plans for healthcare reform was a laughable diversion. It doesn’t matter whether NHS trusts are structured as ‘service providers’ or ‘service contractors’, they still won’t have enough dosh to give everyone who wants it cosmetic surgery, a bionic arm and a nurse in constant attendance.

Sir Bufton-Tufton

Matthew Wilson, the Managing Director of Essaywriter.co.uk, is a shameless fellow. This week he defended his company’s business of providing 30,000 undergraduate and A-level students with ‘bespoke’ essays at £239 a pop. According to him, many of his clients are foreign students who, having coughed up their fees, are having difficulties because they’re ‘unsupported’. Hell, he’s only fulfilling the resulting demand for well-written course work like a good capitalist.

What Wilson doesn’t grasp is that examination standards – like immunological protections – depend for their application on universal uptake. His 30,000 cheats – and that’s what they are – destroy the validity of other, honest students’ labours. However, what his remarks do highlight is the extent to which our universities are being turned into sausage machines which churn out graduates who have little or no interest in what they’ve studied. Nowadays you can’t be considered for all sorts of jobs unless you have a quite inappropriate degree, and cash-strapped universities are only too willing to crank the handle.

The abolition of grants and the professionalisation of higher education are creating an entire generation of young people who are not only uncultured, but positively anti-cultured. In my day, students either worked hard because they loved the subject, or lay around smoking dope and listening to Pink Floyd albums. Neither group would’ve dreamed of ‘buying’ an essay, because we understood that while academic success was desirable there is also such a thing as well-cultivated failure.

A la recherche du Science Museum perdu

Who needs a time machine when you have the Science Museum? Entering the great hall of the museum on Sunday afternoon with my four-year-old son I found my cynical old eyes filling with tears, as the years fell away and I was once again a stripling staring at the mighty Newcomen steam engine. Usually the city taunts me with its ability to change without my noticing. Suddenly a huge new glass barn appears and I have no recollection of what was there before. But at the Science Museum the vast engines of the Industrial Revolution remain in exactly the same places that they were 40 years ago, while surrounding them are brand new ramps, railings and a humungous gift emporium. My little boy tripped gaily off towards the rocketry exhibition, while I tottered behind pierced by time’s arrow.

Back to the Holocene

The Somerset House Ice Rink opened last night, and this year there’s a new feature – an ‘ice wall’ for urbanites who wish to experience truly glacial conditions. Despite the looming cold snap, London’s lust for skating cannot be fulfilled by natural means, so more and more of these artificial rinks are springing up. Personally I like a good glissade, but I remain acutely aware of the irony that the power required to generate the rinks is contributing to the global warming which will ‘switch off’ the Gulf Stream and so plunge us into a new ice age. Sliding to disaster indeed.

Life Is But a Stage

Marlowe’s Tamburlaine at the Barbican last week, Sarah Kane’s Phaedra’s Love at the same venue on Monday. Tonight I’ll be at the National for Ibsen’s Pillars of the Community. My theatre jag is getting out of hand, after 20 years when I hardly went at all I’m gobbling at the live performance trough like a pretentious pig. I stopped going to the theatre in the 1980s because I couldn’t suspend disbelief in the performers – whoever they were pretending to be I saw them as actors. Now it’s all gone arsy-versy and it’s real life I find increasingly incredible, while Tamburlaine’s blood-soaked progress seems only too real.

23.11.05