Pull the other one, mate

"Oo do you fink you are? Michael bleedin Schumacher?"

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Teach children to drink!

I usually think Melissa Kite is rather good, but with this post she's either being disingenuous or plain stupid:

David Cameron has some good ideas from time to time but he also comes up with some right old clangers. Like his assertion today, made during his televised public holiday that children should be taught to drink alcohol safely.

Speaking to a group of young people (always a dangerous set-up) he said: "Some of the friends I had, the ones who had the biggest problems, were the ones who actually were never allowed to drink anything at home - whereas the ones who drink responsibly were the ones who were given a glass of wine or a small glass of beer or a shandy or something. That's the right way to do it in the home."

If the answer to alcoholism really is to teach children how to drink, then why don't the Tories propose giving away free Dubonnet and soda in schools during break time, or perhaps little bottles of vodka and red bull at lunch.

Cameron is bang on with this, and Melissa Kite about as wrong as one can be. It's not a clanger. It's absolutely right.

For anyone under the age of about thirty, the definition of a good night out is a night with the sole purpose of getting drunk. And what used to be a primarily male obsession – going down the boozer and getting hammered – is now an equal opportunities activity.

As a nation, we go out specifically to get drunk. That’s what it is today to be British. For the sheer foulness of the atmosphere, you’d have to go some to beat London’s West End after about 11pm. The streets smell of piss. Boozed up twenty-somethings roam the area, some throwing up, others looking as if they can barely stand. And all in the pervasive ambience of impending violence (it’s no wonder that the British Crime Survey shows that only 16 per cent of violent acts by strangers are prompted by drugs, as opposed to 53 per cent by alcohol). The same picture holds true in other city centres and, increasingly, in rural villages. Unless you’re drunk, Britain is a pretty disgusting place after the pubs shut.

Wander at night, however, in one of Europe’s most beautiful squares, tsuch as he Grand Place in Brussels, and you’ll see a very different sight. In the summer, no matter how late it is, there will be tables outside and groups of friends sitting, talking and enjoying themselves over bottles of wine or Belgian beer. The rest of the year the same thing happens, just indoors. And not a hint of violence.

The explanation lies in the difference between a café culture and a pub culture and the way children drink. On the continent, alcohol is an aid to the success of an evening. The amount drunk is not the measure of the success of an evening. We, however, drink to get drunk and arrange affairs to do that as efficiently as possible. And children are taught from an early age to drink in their respective cultural tradition. As the chef, Raymond Blanc put it: “In all Latin countries, we drink with food; we hardly ever drink without food. That is an English invention”.

Here, children sneak off to the pub and down as much as they can get away with. On the continent, they are served a small amount of wine with the family meal at home, and are socialised both to eat and drink properly.

(I've much more on this in my new book, but you'll have to wait to 2009 to read it)

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Apologies

I'm as frustrated as you are that the site seems to have been all over the place today, wiping posts. It's being investigated...

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I don't want to be treated by a dyslexic doctor (The Times)

I have a piece in today's Times on the dyslexic medical student who is suing the GMC. Here it is:

Here's my problem: I love flying. I get a huge thrill at that moment when an aircraft accelerates on the runway and starts to take off. And so, since I've been a child, I've wanted to learn to fly.

But I can't. I have an unusual eye problem, one of the effects of which is that I do not have 3-D vision. So I'll never be allowed to fly an aircraft, because under Civil Aviation Authority rules my eye condition bars me from getting a pilot's licence.

I've always reasoned that although it's unfortunate that fate has determined that I will never wear a pilot's wings, the CAA must know what is and isn't necessary to fly safely, and if 3-D vision is needed, it's clearly sensible that it bans people like me from piloting aircraft. So instead of flying jumbo jets I do what my body will allow me to do and write for The Times. I've managed to live with the disappointment.

But a 21-year-old medical student, Naomi Gadian, takes a different view. Ms Gadian is dyslexic and is suing the General Medical Council because it uses multiple-choice tests as part of its qualification procedures. As a dyslexic, she finds them difficult. And she says that this means she is being discriminated against.

Forgive me, Ms Gadian, but you're missing the point. You're not being discriminated against. You're being weeded out. It's quite deliberate. If you can't read or write sufficiently well to pass a multiple-choice test, you shouldn't be a doctor.

To be blunt: someone who can't be sure to read 18mg rather than 81mg and who mistakes peroxone for paracetamol is not someone I'd want practising medicine on me - even if they had a wonderful bedside manner and a passion for medicine.

According to Ms Gadian: “Patients aren't going to ask you, ‘Here's four answers. Which one is right?'” Hmmm. Isn't that more or less precisely what patients are going to ask her? It's certainly what I do when I see a doctor. I go over alternative explanations and treatments for my symptoms and get expert advice about which one is right for me.

I'm sure that Ms Gadian is a lovely, caring woman who would, if it were not for her inability to pass the tests designed to see if she would make a good addition to the medical register, be a good addition to the medical register. But not everyone can do everything, and if she can't pass her tests, she can't practise.

It's never occurred to me that the Civil Aviation Authority is discriminating against me. There are just some things that I can do and some that I can't, because of the body I was born with. That's life. It's my lot.

The GMC should have only one response to Ms Gadian: “These are the rules. Shape up or ship out.”

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One law for the wealthy

Sometimes I wonder what it is you have to do to be considered beyond the pale in this country. I've got Channel 4's coverage of Goodwood racing on in the background while I finish off my book, and who has just popped up as a presenter?

This woman.

Last year, Jodie Kidd was exposed for dealing in cocaine.

She should have been sent to prison. Instead, she's being paid by Channel 4 to front one of their biggest sports broadcasts of the year.

Then again, it seems it's not what you do that counts but how well off you are, as the fate of Eva Rausing and her husband shows:

A fabulously wealthy couple caught with a huge haul of cocaine, crack and heroin are to escape prosecution...Typically, addicts caught with such huge quantities of drugs will face a prison sentence. But at Westminster magistrates’ court yesterday, it was revealed that all charges are being dropped after a ‘protracted correspondence’ between their lawyers and the Crown Prosecution Service. Instead, they will each accept a ‘conditional caution’, which will probably involve them promising to attend drug misuse programmes. They will not even have criminal records, although the cautions will be recorded on police files.

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Punished with performance bonuses

Record fine over BBC's phone-ins says the BBC's report about itself.

Read the whole story if you like, but I wouldn't bother. It details how the programmes affected are being individually fined.

It's bonkers. Absolutely bonkers. OFCOM isn't fining the BBC. It's fining us. We pay for the bloody thing.

As for the people responsible; here's how they've been punished for running an organisation which systematically defrauded the public:

The BBC has defended pay rises of up to £107,000 each for executive directors saying it must offer competitive salaries for top jobs.

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The ring of truth

Mashups of Downfall have been done to death, funny as they are.

This one is different, however. This one, I like to think, is a documentary, using the transcript of a real conversation in the Downing Street bunker.

(via Iain Dale)

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For all to see

The technical term for Duncan Sandes is idiot. 

There is a rule which must be followed at all times: never, ever, write an email which you would not be happy to see plastered across every newspaper in the world. (Which, btw, is why I'd be amazed if Giles Coren didn't want to see this missive in print.)

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Apologies

Sorry for the light posting this week. Back to normal asap.

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More than political paranoia

Is this true?

The other day, Gordon Brown was convinced that Dominic Grieve, the shadow Home Secretary, had made such a strong attack on 42-day detention as to impugn his commitment to national security. Although Downing Street advisers trawled and Googled, they could not find the quote. Their boss expressed gratitude for their efforts in the way that a sergeant-major would thank a recruit for a speck of dust on his rifle. Mr Brown then stationed himself at a terminal. For the next four hours, he sat there unavailingly, emanating gloom and rage. The non-psychiatric interpretation of his behaviour is termed "the playing politics with national security syndrome".

Shortly afterwards, John Prescott was in No. 10, showing around some children. "What's he doing in this building?" exploded Mr Brown. "Get him out of here." (He surely cannot regard Mr Prescott as a potential leadership challenger – otherwise, things are truly desperate).

Embarrassed aides explained that, you know, Mr Prescott had been Deputy Prime Minister until last year, and what harm could there be in showing kids around? Gordon Brown's response was to shut himself in the Cabinet Room for the next two hours, talking to no-one.

But this sounds like something way in excess of political paranoia. This reads like someone on the edge. And no one can take pleasure in that.

UPDATE: There is a danger in thinking more quickly than one can type...the word should, as the first commenter points out, be 'inexplicably'!

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