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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How public health and temperance campaigners exploit children

Prohibition and temperance aren't the children of health concerns but rather the offspring of a certain type of christian judgmentalism. But perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that today's dominant religious faith - heath and wellbeing - has adopted the moralism of a previous age in its desire to have us all live a dull but righteous life so we can live forever. How could you indulge in pleasures that may, as a side effect, shorten your life?

And just as with all good religions, our Church of Public Health creates its myths and legends as convenient fairy tales designed to sway the gullible to the cause of living forever. Here's a classic:

Alcohol is being sold at "pocket money" prices across the UK, with products commonly bought by underage drinkers among the cheapest, research by a campaign group suggests.

The Alcohol Health Alliance said white cider - sold for as little as 16p per unit of alcohol - is favoured by teens.

The story in question combines two entirely separate and essentially unrelated pieces of information into a scary story about how young girls are being sucked into a terrible world of self-destruction, harm and death by the purveyors of booze at those 'pocket money prices'.

The first piece of information tells us that:

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) study of its 35 member countries found that 31% of 15-year-old girls reported having been drunk at least twice, compared with 26% of boys (which is in line with the OECD average).

Note the wording - 'drunk at least twice'. What the research tells us is that some girls self report that they have been drunk on two or more occasions. And that seven out of ten girls say they haven't been drunk on even two occasions. The rest are the rebels who maybe drank a few glasses at Christmas or shared a half bottle of vodka at a sleepover. There really isn't anything to get worried about in these statistics. And let's be clear that they've absolutely nothing at all to do with the other information in the story - the bit about 'pocket money prices':

The Alcohol Health Alliance (AHA), a grouping of more than 40 organisations including medical colleges and health charities, surveyed the cost of 480 products on sale in major supermarkets and off-licences in London, north-east England, north-west-England and Scotland.

Its research found both Asda and Tesco to be selling perry at 19p per unit, while the same drink was available at Sainsbury's for 22p per unit. Morrisons was selling cider at 20p per unit.

Now let's set these temperance folk a challenge. Take a 15 year old girl, give her some pocket money and tell her to go and buy some of that 19p per unit perry in ASDA. It's not going to happen, there is no way they'll be able to blag their way through this one. The girl will not succeed in buying any sort of booze, not even cheap white cider at 'pocket money prices' in any supermarket (or for that matter off license). If the 15 year old girls are drinking it's because they've bought in illegally from a smuggler, stolen it or most like been bought it by someone old enough to make the purchase. And, as the distinct lack of drunk 15 year old girls staggering round our streets tells us, this really isn't common or much of a problem.

So, given that the evidence is that booze at 'pocket money prices' isn't driving high levels of teenaged bozziness, why are the Alcohol Health Alliance and other fussbuckets so keen to make out that it is? Here's a clue:

The chairman of the AHA, Prof Sir Ian Gilmore, the former president of the Royal College of Physicians, said: "In spite of a government commitment to tackle cheap, high-strength alcohol, these products are still available at pocket money prices."

Calling for an increase in duty on cider, Prof Gilmore said: "In addition, we need minimum unit pricing. This would target the cheap, high strength products drunk by harmful drinkers whilst barely affecting moderate drinkers, and it would leave pub prices untouched."

This isn't about those girls at all, it's about 'high strength products drunk by harmful drinkers' who the AHA, as good temperance folk, heartily disapprove of. Now some of these people are pretty unsavoury and can cause problems with their behaviour but they're still adults with choice and agency. And making the booze more expensive won't change much - except they'll eat less, skip the rent (and get evicted) and spend more time panhandling other folk for the wherewithal to buy the newly expensive white cider. The more creative ones might make their own - it's really easy.

What the AHA are doing here is playing the 'for the children' card by hinting that children are the ones supping the white cider and therefore we should do something to stop them. Hence the reference to 'pocket money' and the talk about girls - we're having our emotional strings played here by organisations with over 100 years spent perfecting the demonisation of drinking. Prof. Gilmore and his fellow fussbuckets don't just want to stop 'harmful drinking', what they want is to denormalise drinking, to make it something banned, controlled, taxed, price-fixed and confiscated. They want to take you pleasure away simply because they disapprove of that pleasure.

And to achieve this end, the Church of Public Health will conflate unrelated data, will exaggerate research results, will speak of exceptional cases as if they were commonplace, and - when all this fails - they'll just straight up lie.

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The simulated city...

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Super article by Richard Reep in New Geography contrasting the traditional US downtown with what he calls the 'simulated city', the world of the theme park, the beachfront and the management entertainment environment:

It is a city where your expectations as an urban connoisseur are completely fulfilled; decrepitude, blight, and eyesores are disallowed. Even better, a simulated city’s employees are rigorously trained to be cheerful and bright. No homeless people lounge on park benches, and there’s no visible crime, since there is no apparent indigence, want, or fear. Although it would not be turned away, the riskiest tranche of society seems to shun the simulated city. Its design reflects mainstream success, and discourages subversion, by having no alleys, no trashy areas, and no low income community adjacent to it.

This is the city as a playground - safe, sanitised and filled with everything good and nothing bad. But, just like the real city, patrolled, regulated and rules-bound. The down side is that these simulated cities are only for those willing to pay - in cash and effort.

Fascinating.

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Why do authorities fear public gatherings so much?

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We were in Dent. It's lovely place and you should visit - winding cobbled streets, at least three drinking places and it's own brewery in a farm a mile or so up the road. Dent also has an annual beer and music festival, which (as chance would have it) was on this weekend.

So having wandered around the village, paid a brief visit to the festival and generally chilled after our exertions (we'd been for a pleasant walk along the valley), Kathryn and I call into one of the pubs for a drink and a sit. Up to the bar to order a couple of drinks. And to our surprise they're served to us in plastic 'glasses'.

Now I'm absolutely certain that Dent isn't part of some bizarre plastic loving cult. Indeed, I'm pretty certain that the use of plastic glasses is either a requirement of the festival's licence or else the result of many meetings and stern advice from Cumbria's constabulary. Because, as we know, folk festivals in the Cumbrian countryside are places of terror and violence - without these stipulations the festival-goers will resort to glassing eachother in the manner associated with the rougher parts of, say, Glasgow.

It seems to me that these controls - like many others prescribed in the interests of 'safety' - are rather indicative of authority's fear of public gatherings. To give another example, to hold the Cullingworth Gala now requires a licence costing £11 from the Council. It seems that authority cannot countenance any gathering of people taking place without their stamp of approval and the application of a set of pointless controls such as serving beer in plastic skiffs.

The idea that places and spaces in places like Dent and Cullingworth are for people's leisure and pleasure has been replaced with a desire from the police and local council to control, direct and, if not done properly, ban any activity. And especially any activity that might involve drinking, dancing, singing or the playing of musical instruments. Doubly so if the audience might include 'young people'. We are to be treated as infants given a set of instructions on good behaviour by the police and council jobsworths.

For sure, most of the time this isn't a problem - we can put up with booze in plastic glasses - but there is a point at which the costs imposed by officialdom start to put an end to gatherings. Dangerous gatherings like street parties and, but for a last minute intervention, Bradford's annual Boy Scout parade and service are ended because their organisers give up on jumping through hoops and paying out more money on the latest piece of over-the-top crowd management imposed by some bloke from the council.

The police and council fear that these events foment disorder, that all these people gathering together will encourage criminals and that, in some respects, gatherings are merely formalised anti-social behaviour. The authorities would much rather we sat quietly sipping something alcohol free from our plastic skiff - or better still that these inconvenient, even dangerous, events didn't happen in the first place. It's not a vain attempt to silence political dissent but rather an organised endeavour intended to limit and control our pleasure - most often in the supposed interests of 'safer communities' or 'public health'.

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The Hegemony of Nanny

Hilaire Belloc penned a cautionary tale about Jim who ran away from nurse and was eaten by a lion. It ends like this:

When Nurse informed his Parents, they
Were more Concerned than I can say:--
His Mother, as She dried her eyes,
Said, ``Well--it gives me no surprise,
He would not do as he was told!''
His Father, who was self-controlled,
Bade all the children round attend
To James's miserable end,
And always keep a-hold of Nurse
For fear of finding something worse. 

A summation of our governments' current outlook. We are badly behaved children who are at risk from whole prides of terrible lions - lions clutching burgers, lions pushing cigarettes, lions in bars serving us gin slings with a smile and lions urging us to have a little flutter on the ponies. And, as uncontrolled, ignorant children we must be protected, must be made to hold tightly to nurse so as these dreadful things do not harm us.

The masters who command this attachment to nanny do so for our own good. And for the good of society. Those devilous lions are a temptation into ways of sin, of the worst two sins: disobeying the government and putting our health at risk (thereby causing the masters to expend money caring for us). The problem is that we do not learn the lesson of Jim and continue to shun nanny's apron strings for the will o' the wisp that is private pleasure. We will not behave. As John Keats put it:

There was a naughty boy,
A naughty boy was he,
He would not stop at home,
He could not quiet be-

Off we go, playing, singing, writing poems, drinking beer, smoking and sticking our tongue out at nanny. So nanny goes to government reminding them of Jim's sorry end and how we are not behaving as that government has ordered. So more rules are set, more fences built and stronger apron strings tied, to the point of choking us. We cannot be allowed to disobey, we cannot be permitted to cost the government money by damaging our health.

Nanny is happy, the new rules are in place. Those unruly children will be brought to heel, made to comply and to conform. But we know better, we know that we'll break the rules - the more there are the more we'll break. We know we will seek out fun, enjoy forbidden pleasures that children in past times enjoyed.

And we know that nanny will return again to the government asking for more - more rules for nanny to crush our spirits, more rules that create a virtue of rule-breaking, more about those two great sins - disobedience and indulgence. For now the power is with nanny but when every pleasure is a sin, when every indulgence forbidden - what then? Then there'll be a reckoning.

And a return to pleasure. As a great sage once said:

“Children aren't happy with nothing to ignore,
And that's what parents were created for.” 

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Quote of the day - what addiction isn't...

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From Chris Snowdon:

As a general rule of thumb, if someone tells you that cupcakes or smartphones are "as addictive as cocaine" on the basis that they all produce dopamine in the brain, walk away. They're saying no more than that pleasurable activities stimulate the brain's pleasure centres, which is a banal tautology.

Do take note all you health reporters.

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Leisure and pleasure not tax and regulation - how to transform the high street

 

Next week Bradford will be debating a motion calling for a levy on 'large retailers' the revenue from which would be used by the council to do wonderful things so as to sustain high streets and town centres. It all seems very good:

That the Secretary of State gives Local Authorities the power to introduce a local levy of 8.5% of the rate on large retail outlets in their area with a rateable annual value not less that £500,000, and requires that the revenue from this levy be retained by the Local Authority in order to be used to improve local communities in their areas by promoting local economic activity, local services and facilities, social and community wellbeing and environmental protection.

But the truth is that this proposal represents - in terms of regeneration - a dead end. Not only does it make an arbitrary distinction in terms of business, essentially "big shop bad, little shop good" but it completely misses the reasons why, firstly, shops out of town are popular and secondly what drives change in high streets at the minute.

If we are to 'rescue' - or is the right word actually 'transform' - our high streets, we aren't going to do it through levies, taxes and regulations, through the use of governmental main force to order the way in which we shop. If we want great centres and high streets, we should start by looking at the ones that work and with asking why this is the case.

Above all though we need to stop thinking in terms of high streets as merely places where we shop. Two American academics (one an actual shop owner), Susie Pryor and Sanford Grossbart wrote about the 'ethnography of an American Main Street':

Other consumers and retailers describe social activities on Main Street, which they associate with a variety of experiences, including dining; window shopping; strolling for relaxation; jogging for health reasons; pub crawls; wine tastings; book clubs; language clubs; craft guilds; charity events; art events; parades; demonstrations; mass celebrations following major sports victories; and meeting friends. Many informants also refer to social interactions between and among retailers and consumers.

We recognise this description but miss out on the fact that all this meeting, playing, talking and enjoying takes place somewhere other than in a shop. We treasure these places because they are places of leisure and pleasure but just as importantly we are actors in the production of that pleasure. For sure, we want the meal in the restaurant to be tasty and the service to be smiling and easy but the real pleasure of the meal is in the company, the buzz and the interaction with our friends.

And we also know that such pleasure - the crowds, the buzz, the interaction - doesn't have to be in the high street. Julian Dobson writes about a London canal and concludes:

It’s easy on the eye, even if you wouldn’t want to investigate the canal bottom or some of the shrubbery too closely. It’s a place for wildlife. Sometimes it’s cultivated, with little gardens and pocket parks punctuating the path. The contrast with City Road couldn’t be greater.

The Regent’s Canal is a high street because it attracts people in the way that a good high street attracts people, whether it’s full of bars, shops or public buildings. It works because it’s a stage, a promenade and a garden. If we want our traditional high streets to have a future, that’s what they need to be too.

Despite these observations - academic and journalistic - public authorities remain wedded to direction, to tax and regulation rather than to creating the spaces that work. These won't all be havens of peaceful pleasure like the Regent's Canal - that's not everyone's leisure and pleasure - but they will be filled with people enjoying themselves, celebrating life and consuming the bounteous wonders that the world contains for our pleasure.

If there were no shops in the high street but it was filled with happy, smiling people out enjoying themselves would that not be a success? I think so.

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Rules...

We went to watch the fireworks. We do this every year. And each time they brighten up the night for a fleeting moment of excitement and pleasure. The bangs, whizzes, colours and sparkles are more magical that most of us let on. Even when there's a top chemistry student explaining which chemicals make the different bangs, colours and assorted firework wonders.

And so it should be. There is a prosaic answer to the firework question. Human hands have designed and created the pyrotechnology but, when we hear the rocket swoosh into the sky and, breath held, await the explosion of sound, colour and magic, we don't think 'what a clever chap' but just simply "wow!"

All that talent and skill packed into a little cardboard tube or box just for our pleasure. Those carefully selected chemicals cleverly blended to provide us with a few seconds of wow! This my friends is what we mean by progress and civilisation. Not those dreary places of work, not those orders and controls, not the direction of our lives by others. These are the curse of progress, the black side of civilisation.

This isn't to say that there should be no rules - the game doesn't work without rules. But that, like all good games, the rules should be simple, straightforward, understood by all. The rules shouldn't be the reserve of an elite, reserved only to those who following great study have touched on a few of those rules. Who know enough to answer the question: "can we do that?"

But this is not so. The rules are not simple. They are complicated, voluminous, confusing and contradictory. One day we can celebrate when the bewigged cognoscenti interpret those rules in a way that matches our common senses only for the same great minds to do the opposite tomorrow.

We went to the fireworks. And there were rules. Each year there are new rules. Not replacing the old rules but adding to them. And every year those lighting the sparkling, fizzing wonders comply with those rules. But they mutter; 'this is daft' or "we can't do this next year". One day they will stop. The rules - when you can start, when you can stop, what you can light, how you must set up, whether you can charge, how to deal with the (inevitable) presence of children - an endless avalanche of rules will eventually weigh these men down and the fireworks will be gone.

We'll be sad. A little disgruntled maybe. We might sound off to the bloke alongside in the pub or rant about it to our in-laws. But the fireworks will be gone. Killed by the rules. Our pleasure will be a little diminished. Life will be a little duller.

And what applies to fireworks will apply to all our other little pleasures. To those things - Christmas lights, mulled wine, the smell of grandad's pipe, the logs on the fire - that bring a moment of light, a little fun into our lives. The rules will be applied and each of those things will be no more. And we'll miss them.

But not so much as to do anything. To face the rule makers and campaigners for rules and say; "no, that's enough, thankyou". And one day there will be only rules and no pleasure.

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I love the Olympics...

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Corruption, favouritism, private roads, brand fascism, a naff logo, oppresive security and bureaucratic incompentance - for the past couple of weeks the news has been filled with the impending disaster that will be the London Olympics.

Ever curmudgeon, cynic and hater of sport has sprung to life selecting his or her special example of the Olympic scandal. It has been a pleasure to read hundreds of blogs and thousands of tweet bemoaning the waste of money, the indulgence and the arrogance of the Olympic organisation.

But for me, all this has to be set against the truth - thousands of athletes who have trained for years for the honour of coming to London, one of the world's greatest cities, to compete in the Olympic Games. Less the big names, the top sprinters, the tennis stars, the football players, and more the lesser sports, the ones that get no attention in a world dominated by football - tae kwan do, archery, shooting, sailing, mucking about in canoes and  swashbuckling with swords.

Every four years we turn away from the normal round of sports and look instead at a difference collection of inspiring athletes, men and women who will do there best - even the ones who know they've no real chance of a medal. We'll see tears, smiles, rage, excitement and sheer exhaustion. And - for all our cynicism - we'll love the spectacle and marvel at the talent displayed. This is what the Olympics are about.

I hate the controlling nature of the organisation, if I never have to see Seb Coe again it may improve my temper. But I don't care. I love the Olympics and relish that these games are in my country - England - and in the city where I was raised - London.

So let the games begin. And I for one intend to enjoy - to savour - every bit that I can of these London Olympics.

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Bang!

I thought that some fine words would come to accompany this photograph - taken during the finale to the 'Classical Fantasia' concert at Kirkstall Abbey. But somehow they won't come except to say that the smell of gunpowder, the screams and blasts of fireworks and the eerie lighting really does fit the 1812 Overture!

The precision, the co-ordination and the creativity that go to make up a few minutes of spectacular entertainment is a real joy. That we invest such energy into pleasure - even a fleeting pleasure - stands as a contrast to the soul-destroying drear of a purposeful life. There is no purpose to fireworks beyond pleasure, lighting the old walls just gives a context to that splendid show of fire, noise and light - this is not well-being but pure hedonism, pleasure for its own sake. And I loved it!

Bang!

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Tenets of the New Puritans #2: "It's for the children" - the curse of the play strategy

“It’s for the children” or “think of the children” has become a core mantra for the New Puritan – we should hide cigarettes and alcohol just in case some child might catch a glimpse and be drawn inexorably towards the evil weed or corrupting liquor. And a host of restrictions and controls – some advocate building huge firewalls – are needed in case a child stumbles across a little bare flesh on the Internet.

Great calls go up when an actor lights up on film or television – especially when that actors is a cartoon chameleon.

Anti-smoking campaigners have branded the animated film Rango a public health hazard for encouraging children to take up the habit.

A raft of groups said the PG feature, which opened last Friday, is setting a bad example by featuring more than 60 instances of characters puffing away.

Doubtless our brave campaigners care only for the welfare of children, just as do those people who insist on airbrushing out I K Brunel’s cigar.

But there is a more insidious problem with the New Puritans and children – the de facto banning of play. Or rather its replacement with something that is similar to play but, by being directed by the New Puritan, ceases to be such a thing. After all we didn’t need a “play strategy” did we?

Children and young people are to be encouraged to give their opinions on Bradford's play strategy and play provision by calling a play "hotline".

The authority will publicise the All to Play For strategy using brightly coloured posters and cards featuring the number for Bradford early years and childcare service.

Ali Long, play development and training officer, said the play team of four full-time staff and other mobile playworkers wanted to hear directly from children and young people.

You see the problem is that we might just do the wrong kind of play – you know, the bad sort:

Teachers reprimanded two seven-year-old boys for playing army games - because it amounted to 'threatening behaviour'. The youngsters were disciplined after they were spotted making gun-shapes with their hands.

Play strategies are intended for purposeful things, they are part of learning – we might see them as the creation of a dutiful generation of young New Puritans. Children face barriers to play (which don’t extend to adults telling them to stop that and stop it now) and we should be concerned about “the quality of play environments”. This whole approach, the idea that we need centrally-directed strategies is deeply worrying.

In its way the Bradford strategy both compounds and also comprehends the problem:

Access to the outdoor environment for play remains a high priority for children and young people. We are currently witnessing the growth of a new phenomenon – that described by a number of professionals as the “battery child syndrome” where today’s children are often denied the play opportunities that earlier generations took for granted.

But nowhere does the document admit to the source of the problem. A while ago I mused on the joys of being ten:

We climbed over the fence to play football in the school grounds (it is only a rumour that we climbed on the roof) & could cross the fields to Elmers End Cricket Club and watch them play – and so long as I was back for tea no-one bothered

With Jeremy Lesuik I got the bus and tube to go to football – Highbury, Stamford Bridge, Upton Park – on our own and paid for from our pocket money. And in the Summer a trip to The Oval or Lords for cricket

Mr Sparks took us to the old golf course to play cricket – on occasion up to twenty or so playing an impromptu game. In bad weather he took us swimming. We walked the two miles there and back to South Norwood pool

...And climbing the cherry trees and digging for Roman remains in the garden (which of course we found in abundance)

Now I know part of this is nostalgia but the bigger part is a recognition is what we have lost in our search for a risk free “play environment”. And more importantly in making sure no voices other than the approved New Puritan voice are directed to the upbringing of children.  We touched above on bad play for boys (you know the stuff with guns and violence – they would play like that if it wasn’t for TV and video games) but there’s also bad play for girls too. The difference is that this sort of bad play isn’t attacked by punishing the girl but by directing our attention to mum or to the shopkeeper:

Bailey's report asks for government and business to work together to tackle the problem – for example, by ending the sale of inappropriately "sexy" clothing for young children, such as underwired bras and T-shirts with suggestive slogans. But Bailey recommends that if progress is not made the government should force retailers to make the changes in 18 months.

Cameron's letter says: "I note that many of the actions you suggest are for business and regulators to follow rather than for government. I support this emphasis, as it consistent with this government's overall approach and my long-held belief that the leading force for progress should be social responsibility, not state control."

That girls want to play dressing up, to try out make up, to pretend to be models or princesses is normal behaviour not premature sexualisation – if there is a problem it is with adults sees anything sexual about a nine-year-old child, whatever they are wearing. Yet that is precisely what the New Puritans are doing – suggesting that girls dressing-up is ‘premature sexualisation’ is precisely the same mistake as we make by saying that a women in a mini-skirt is asking to be raped.

In all this we see a conflicted attitude to children but one dominated by a corrupted idea of childhood – one where children can have all of the fun we had without any of the risks, where our obsession with sex is visited onto the one group in society without that obsession and where play must be directed to purposeful things rather than indulged in for its own sake.

It seems to me that when society thinks it needs a play strategy – apparently because children have “a right to play” under the “UN Charter on the Rights of the Child” – that society has lost its way. Yes children need to play but we don’t need a strategy, we don’t need directing in this, we know (and children certainly know) what to do.

Pleasure – hedonistic, undirected, indulgent pleasure – is a human need. Sadly, the New Puritans believe only certain kinds of pleasure are worthy of encouragement and that many great pleasures are harmful, sinful, a cost to society. And must be ‘denormalised’. So it is with children’s play – it must be supervised, directed, managed and prescribed , made ‘safe’ and expunged of any corrupting influences from ‘harmful’ adult pleasures.

But of course we do it all “for the children”.

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Liberalisation works but that won't stop the New Puritans banning your pleasures

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Some will have watched the programme on Channel 4 this evening pointing out the extent to which out drugs policies – all of them – are failing. I’ve long been equivocal about our approach to drugs but this has been on the basis of disagreeing with the tactics rather than questioning the strategy. This programme hasn’t yet changed my mind but I now doubt the efficacy of the draconian, ban everything, ‘bang ‘em up in jail’, catch the drug lords and take all the money strategy we now employ.

Many of you may well agree with me on this – but believe me the politicians (from every party) who use the term ‘soft on drugs’ as a cheap vote vacuum will be revving up the opposition to the politician who says ‘legalise it’ or ‘don’t ban it’. Even when the evidence of liberalisation’s success is there before them, politicians, egged on by a coalition of the ignorant and the scared, still don’t see it. As I pointed out a few days ago, we’re about to ‘put and end to the 24-hour drinking culture’ despite:

Alcohol consumption has fallen since the liberalisation of licensing laws – yes folks we’re drinking less

Alcohol-related emergency admissions to hospitals have also fallen since the liberalisation of licensing laws

Levels of violent crime – and especially alcohol-related violent crime – have fallen in the same period

Yes folks – liberalisation works. And draconian restrictions change nothing – despite the smoking ban and the endless scares about the habit nearly a third of 18-24 year olds admit to smoking (and if you ask me that’s an under-estimate). The number of smokers continues to decline (mostly because smokers die younger rather than because of people quitting) but not at any faster a rate than was the case before the ban. All the ban has done is closed a load of pubs and annoyed a lot of people – it isn’t saving many lives.

Yet people still don’t seem to be listening. Here’s Guido Fawkes reporting on Kit Malthouse (Tory Deputy Mayor of London and Chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority):

Behind the paywall at The Times, Deputy Mayor of London Kit Malthouse has been expounding on the ‘need’ for state intervention to combat alcohol consumption. The chief of the Met Police authority suggests twice daily alcohol testing for problem drinkers with “intensive monitoring and enforcement to ensure compliance”.

He gleefully explains what happens to those who dare breach a prohibition order in a similar scheme run in the backwoods of South Dakota: “The sanction is immediate and certain – straight into the cells, no argument, no court, no lawyers.”

It seems the new prohibitionists are everywhere despite every scrap of evidence suggesting that a more liberal approach is more effective (see above). And there’s more to come – fatty foods, soft drinks, driving, red meat and staying up late are all in the sights of the new puritans. As Mr Puddlecote will remind us – we told you so.

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Wednesday Whimsy: Remembering a White Christmas

I was nine when I experienced my first white Christmas. My memory may be a little rose-tinted but we’d set off to walk to midnight mass at Our Lady of the Annunciation in Addiscombe – probably a mile or so. It was cold but not snowing and about 9.30 in the evening as we were serving so had to get everything ready for what would be the full on smells and bells service.

During mass – almost perfectly – it snowed and when we set out home the roads were covered with a pristine layer of snow. We walked the old organist home (he was over eighty and a little wobbly) and set out home. And it started to snow again. Perfect.

Today our relationship with snow seems angry – we don’t seem to take in its beauty. To look in awe at the way in which it covers blemished places making them fine and grand again. We run headlines saying: “Fury of the travellers grounded by snow storms” or “Transport chaos: blizzards bring Britain to standstill as more snow on way” and “Snow-hit Britain: another day of chaos as roads and airports are closed”. Snow is an obstacle to our lives, it interrupts our frantic scuttling about doing important things…we care more about whether the bookies will pay out on a white Christmas than we do about seeing a stunning white blanket out the window on the morning of 25th December.

I like snow and worry that our anger with the inconvenience of the white stuff takes away from the magic it brings. The pleasure of the “snow day”, the excitement of sledging, giggling while we throw snowballs or building the biggest snowman in the village. Pleasures that shouldn’t go away just because we’ve grown up a bit. And to those pleasures us old folk can add a glass of mulled cider or Christmas ale, a log fire and “White Christmas” on the telly. What could be better?

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