Diary – 21 April 2007

The smoking ban approaches with terrifying speed. I fear that all my righteous indignation, my libertarian instinct, is merely the frightened whimper of an addict whose last crutch is being kicked away by the men in grey suits. When I drank — and I drank a lot — I couldn’t imagine a life for myself in which I wasn’t drinking. When I eventually stopped, nearly four years ago, the reality of life without debts to bars, being slapped by women I was sure I’d never met, and a perpetual hangover was so pleasant that I wondered why I hadn’t stopped sooner. I want to stop smoking so should be grateful to a government that is making a decision for me. I can’t, however, imagine myself not smoking. If I didn’t smoke, what would I do? Jog? Finger rosary beads nervously at parties? Chew gum after dinner and after sex? I feel about July the way Tony Blair must feel about May. I am, however, prepared, and am halfway through replacing one addiction with another. It’s as if my subconscious knows that the smoking has got to go and that, with a little arm-bending from the state, this will happen soon.

***

My new addiction is to auction catalogues, and now that most auction houses post them online I spend hours trawling Christie’s for anything weird or beautiful. I search ‘Skull’ and ‘Erotic’ and always — such are the mechanics of supply and demand — get a hit. My latest fix was an early 19th-century ape’s head carved out of wood. It was bizarre and ugly and I had to have it. Bringing it home, I’d hoped that Sara, my fiancée, wouldn’t notice it. The ape’s open mouth, protruding tongue and intense green glass eyes rather gave the game away. On seeing it, Sara said, clutching the charms on her necklace, ‘I hope you haven’t brought evil into this house, Oscar.’