Scribblings - on pubs, snooker, loneliness and the curse of time

I don't know about you but I think pubs are pretty important. Mostly because they sell beer and people I like go there but also because these things are central to English culture. A while ago the Joseph Rowntree Foundation conducted a study in the South Pennine village of Denholme (which for the record has a fantastic pub - one of the best - called the New Inn) that looked at loneliness. For all that this was a good study - I've blogged about it a couple of times - Old Mudgie reminds us that the pub is a sovereign remedy against being alone:

Until various illnesses put it beyond him, my late dad used to go out for a pint or two at lunchtime a couple of days a week. My mum would ask “what’s the point of that if you never talk to anyone?” but that is missing the point. If nothing more, it provides a change of scenery, a bit of mental stimulation and something to look forward to. Sometimes you exchange a bit of conversation, other times all you do its talk to the bar staff, but anything’s better than nothing.

And our resident pub grump went on to suggest that maybe pubs need to think about design and layout - perhaps to better allow the chance of interaction between those like his Dad on their visits. It's a pity (and I blogged about this too that the smoking ban gave people - men mostly - an excuse never to leave the armchair in the shed).

This neatly takes us to pub games on the telly - snooker and darts mostly - and Frank Davis's gentle rant about how the presentation of these sports has been sanitised. No longer do we see Bill Werbenuik downing a pint a round or Alex Higgins inhaling 20 Bensons during a match:

But what really made it popular were the cast of characters it introduced to the world. And none was more flamboyant than two-times snooker world champion Alex Higgins. If any single person made snooker popular, it was him. And he was a bad boy. He picked fights with people, and threw TV sets out of windows, and got fined and banned. And he’d sit in his chair by the snooker table drinking beer and smoking cigarettes.

The smoking bit was finished by the ban but I can't see - other than wanting to make snooker even more dull than it is already - why players can't drink. Indeed Bill Werbenuik famously drank enormous quanitites of booze so as to correct a tic that affected his game.

In the end the deal here is how we spend our time. And, as you all know I hope, the 'protestant work ethic' shtick needs putting to bed. It's not that when we commit to doing something, we shouldn't put in the effort to do it well but rather that we're not put on this earth to slave our guts out putting food on the table, clothes on out backs and a roof over our heads. Or if you're not a fan of the god stuff - that stuff used to be the fate of man (and it remains so for many millions in the world) but technology, specialisation and the wonders of neoliberalism have made it possible for us to spend a little more of that time of the things we get pleasure from.

That's when we get to grips with time maybe?

Since Einstein we have come to realise that everything is relative. Place a clock in a space craft and whisk it away at close to the speed of light and the on board clock would keep different to time to an identical clock placed in my study. Actually the clock in my study hasn't worked for years but I'm too damn idle to change the battery. Thus it seems that time, and everything else for that matter, is simply a problem of perspective; a relationship to a frame of reference. This is not to say that 'time' does not exist. In fact Einstein believed in the concept of time, but a time married to the universe. His concept of time could only exist within the reference of space-time and could not be divorced and act as an independent entity.

Got that? Not sure whether this explains how slowly time passes when your team's a goal up with five minutes to go. Or how quickly time goes when you've a 12 noon deadline for a funding application. But as they say time waits for nobody.

Might as well party then!

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May I have permission to care, my lord?

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I attended a day's presentation and workshop for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's "Neighbourhood Approaches to Loneliness". Mostly I went because one of the study areas was the village of Denholme, part of Bingley Rural ward.

The work is interesting and useful. I can commend it's basic idea - that communities can be helped (assuming this is needed at all) to respond to the problems of loneliness. And loneliness, as much as any other so-called public health challenge, is a killer:

Loneliness is a bigger problem than simply an emotional experience.  Research shows that loneliness and social isolation are harmful to our health: lacking social connections is a comparable risk factor for early death as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, and is worse for us than well-known risk factors such as obesity and physical inactivity.

Put simply, meeting our need for social interaction can help us live longer, healthier lives regardless of the other choices we make about our lifestyles.

Much of the work is about what might be done - not at the grand level of national policy but at the level of the neighbourhood. And in presenting these findings two observations stood out to me: one depressing but not surprised and the other chilling.

The first was:

Regulation kills kindness

People who want to help are put off helping because of the regulations - the safeguarding checks, the insurances, the mandatory training, the forms, the licences, the sheer bureaucracy of trying to do a good deed. This is depressing - and my depression was worsened by advocates of regulation defending the use of regulation. Pleasingly the project head amended her statement to say that regulation and bureaucracy kills kindness.

The second, the chilling one that went almost without notice, was:

We need to give people permission to care

That's right - permission to care. That professionals in the employ of the Council, the NHS or their satellite agencies needed to allow people to look out for their neighbour. In this I saw a dead culture - one murdered by the good intentions of public agencies. That we might not be allowed to pop in on Mr & Mrs Jones to make sure they're OK, maybe make them a cuppa and have a chat for half and hour. Unless we've undertaken the official "befriending" course, got the required clearances from the state and been attached to an organisation that "delivers" looking out for the neighbours.

So tell me you caring professionals, what kind of world are you creating where someone needs your permission to be a good neighbour? Chilling indeed.

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How could a smoking ban review be acceptable to smokers and non-smokers?

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A while ago the Freedom to Choose blog posted a 'loneliness' trilogy that reported on the experiences of smokers - especially elderly smokers - following the ban in public buildings. As one elderly woman concluded:

"I am now on anti depressants and wish that I had the courage to kill myself and join my dear husband.

Thank you politicians for making my life not worth living after working from age 14 until 68. I am now 74 and have lost my soul and will to live in this lonely place.”

While the ban has made pubs, restaurants and such like more pleasant places for us non-smokers, it has made for a lonely life for many smokers and especially women. So, when the Joseph Rowntree Trust began its examination of loneliness - partly in Denholme, a village up the hill from Cullingworth - I sent them the material from Freedom-to-choose and others about the negative impact of the smoking ban on loneliness and, indeed, on the mental health of elderly smokers.

So what should we do? Going back to few restrictions on smoking wouldn't be acceptable and would represent an imposition on non-smokers - including those who have conditions such as asthma that are exacerbated by passive smoking. But equally we need to allow a space for those who smoke within our public places - treating smokers as lepers is perhaps as damaging to health as the smoking itself. Depression and loneliness are big problems among the elderly contributing significantly to ill-health.

Loneliness is bad for your health. Researchers rate loneliness as a higher risk than lifelong smoking. Researchers also link lack of social interaction with the onset of degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s: an illness which costs us an estimated £20 billion a year and has an even higher human cost. One study reported a doubled risk of Alzheimer’s disease in lonely people compared with those who were not lonely.

It has been shown that loneliness makes it harder to regulate behaviour, rendering people more likely to drink excessively, have unhealthier diets or take less exercise. There is also evidence that loneliness adversely affects the immune and cardio-vascular systems.

So the efforts to reduce smoking - well-meant as they are - contribute to increases in something that is a higher risk - loneliness. We really cannot continue with the current 'denormalisation' approach - quite literally, it is killing people. So what could we do?

• Promote and support the use of e-cigarettes - these are perhaps the most effective harm reduction system for smokers since they mimic the act and deliver only nicotine to the smoker rather than a cocktail of carcinogens from the burning tobacco. And e-cigarettes have no sidestream passive smoking risks - the 'smoke' we see is just water vapour
• Allow premises above a certain size to have a separate, well-ventilated room for use by smokers - by using negative pressure and modern extraction technology (of the kind used to prevent odours and gases escaping from industrial processes) the negative impact for non-smokers can be more-or-less eliminated
• Permit - perhaps on a trial basis - smaller premises to have times when smoking is permitted. This doesn't deal with the lingering smell but it avoids the sidestream/passive smoking risks

I'd welcome other suggestions as it must be within the wit of man to design a society that tolerates smoking (while being clear about its health risks) - the situation at present is both unfair and dangerous.

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The impact of the smoking ban on the old...

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For all my opposition to the smoking ban, I never really thought about how it would create loneliness, depression and illness in the old. Here's one real example (lifted from here): 

“I am getting too old to stand outside pubs or restaurants. Plus I was taught that it was only 'ladies of the night' that stood in the street smoking. 

I have been 3 years away from any social contact other than the odd hello with neighbours. 

Being a widow with no family it was always going to be hard to get back into some semblance of normality with regard to socialising, but I didn't think that it would be this bad.

I used to meet up in a cafeteria with some lady friends, but now that has stopped as a few of the ladies were smokers and didn't want to stand in the street to have a cigarette. 

I went to a quiz night at the local pub as there were quite a few elderly 'singles' there. That has stopped. I also played bingo once a week and that too has stopped as there is no pleasure in having a drink there with no cigarette. 

I am now on anti depressants and wish that I had the courage to kill myself and join my dear husband.

Thank you politicians for making my life not worth living after working from age 14 until 68. I am now 74 and have lost my soul and will to live in this lonely place.”

Depression, loneliness, even suicide - what have we done to these poor folk with our insistence on a total ban. The 'Freedom2Choose' site records a dozen of so examples - real examples of real people with their pleasure destroyed by the smoking ban. Plus this comment from some kid:

“OMG these ladies are my nans age and its people who are younger than them who made these horrible laws that make them stand out in the cold and they should be ashamed at throwing their parents in the street, my nan smokes and says she would rather be at home and i thought it was because she was old but now i think its because she dont want to stand in the street, i cried when i read this letter and wish that my nan could go out to see people and not sit indoors unhappy, they are bastards who do this to old people.”

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