Diary – 2 June 2007

I don’t keep a diary any more, having decided that my past efforts contained too much that was either libellous or trite. However, leafing through a collection of oldies this week I noted one pertinent item, namely that when the National Insurance scheme was launched in July 1948, Bevan’s vision was greeted with mixed feelings by doctors and sections of the public, especially those he had designated as vermin. A sum of 4s 11d was docked from wage packets, of which only 81/2d went to the Health Service. In nine months, costs had already spiralled an extra £50 million from the original estimate of £176 million, prompting the BMA to predict national ruin. So what’s changed?

One thing the old diaries do record is my frequent and abortive attempts to give up smoking. Since the day is fast approaching when it will be a costly offence to smoke in church — another Lewis Carroll edict from this increasingly ludicrous government — I thought I should confess that, having contentedly puffed on the weed for 60 years, 514 days ago I gave up cold turkey — no patches, chewing gum, hypnosis or acupuncture — driven by the conviction that my luck must be running out. I am now left with £1,000-worth of Dunhill pipes, a collection of expensive lighters and half-a-dozen Picasso ceramic ashtrays. I certainly don’t feel any smugness, and I retain limitless sympathy for those social lepers forced to huddle in doorways or forgo a quick Marlboro during Evensong. Nanette was sure the deprivation would make me the definitive grumpy old man, since previous attempts had usually transformed me into an ogre; but this time, curiously, I remained my charming, affable self. I had always persuaded myself that, without a cigarette, my creative juices would dry up, making me incapable of writing a coherent sentence.