ALEXANDRA SHULMAN'S NOTEBOOK: Prohibition of fun? It will never be a winner, Rishi

Release time：2024-05-22 03:35:39 Source：Culture Channels news portal

So what should a girl do to enjoy herself nowadays? Every week a new survey points out the toll taken on our bodies by alcohol and tobacco, the terrible twins that have been my pleasurable mainstays for around 50 years.

Last week another survey revealed that not only are middle- aged women like myself world-leading when it comes to binge-drinking, but now in the UK even our children aged between ten and 13 are leading the pack on substance abuse.

Whatever way you slice the argument, there is no good news when it comes to either drink or smokes, other than the fact that they are so enjoyable. The other morning I woke, having overdone it the night before, berating myself with my usual cry of, 'Why do I do it?' But of course at the time it was fun.

The second glass of white wine slipped down a treat before dinner, as we opened a new bottle at the table and kept topping up our glasses. Later that evening I treated myself to the pre-bedtime cigarette I find hard to give up, even though I can quite easily get through the whole of the rest of the day without them. It was all a pleasant buzzy blur – lots of laughs and all that.

Rishi Sunak's plan to outlaw smoking for the next generation will never work, writes ALEXANDRA SHULMAN

According to a survey last week, it's not just middle-aged women such as myself who are heavy binge-drinkers, but children aged 10 to 13 in the UK are some of the worst offenders of substance abuse

It's not hard to see why teenagers binge on six-packs and vapes if they can't buy cigarettes - prohibiting fun will never be easy to pull off

At no point did I think about how I might feel the next day. At no point did I conjure up that horrible nauseous feeling that comes with the first cup of strong coffee and which, as you get older, magnifies as the hours pass. I didn't, not for a moment, consider the likely sorry leaden state of my brain when I woke.

So no wonder that our children are tempted by these drugs and why outlawing, as Rishi Sunak wants to do with teenagers and tobacco, will never work.

If a grown woman like me makes the stupid choice of overindulging while being well aware of the consequences, it's not difficult to see why teenagers binge on bottles of cheap vodka and six-packs, and sucking on vapes if they can't buy cigarettes. It's because it seems like great fun to them – and a prohibition of fun is never going to be an easy one to pull off.

I'd rather have a card over an app

There I was the other day in John Lewis, buying saucepans, as you do. At the next till was a customer who had lost her John Lewis card and wanted to know how to get a replacement. 

There are no longer cards, she was told – you need to get to your account by downloading the app. Is there no one I can call, she persisted? No, replied an implacably unhelpful jobsworth. They'll just tell you to download the app.

It's hardly surprising John Lewis is in the doldrums when it's scoring own goals such as scrapping physical loyalty cards and forcing customers to access them on an app instead

Looking around the shop floor, I saw that the median age of customers was over 50. While we all know how to download apps, we don't necessarily want our smartphones filled with so many that we can't find them on the screen. We like a nice chargecard.

John Lewis is in the doldrums, but with own goals like this it's hardly surprising.

Will the quiet guru beat the loudmouth?

Jeremy Clarkson's Diddly Squat range is going to be available on Amazon Fresh. You will no longer have to beat the traffic queue to his Cotswold farm shop to scoop up the beef jerky, rapeseed oil and salted crisps he produces.

At the same time, Yotam Ottolenghi, the successful Israeli cook we have to thank for introducing us to pomegranate molasses and rose petals in the store cupboard, is headed to the Waitrose shelves. His jars of Ottolenghi-branded miso pesto, and rose and preserved lemon harissa, will be available in the next aisle to Persil.

When we buy into personality brands, it's not only the food that we are buying – it's the name on the tin. Petrolhead, millionaire loudmouth or North London's quieter culinary guru… who will be the winner?

Yotam Ottolenghi's self-branded miso pesto and rose and preserved lemon harissa is heading to Waitrose stores

How a trauma put an end to anxiety

We had a young Ukrainian woman living with us from April 2022 until late last year. She has done brilliantly at making a life for herself in the UK, but she has felt intense anxiety much of the time.

It's no wonder, being in a strange country with no friends and family to support her and worrying about family back home. A few weeks ago, she briefly returned for the first time to visit her home town of Dnipro. It was a depressing sight after so many months of the war and the threat of attack was omnipresent and frightening.

She's now back in the UK and says the general anxiety she previously felt has all but disappeared.

Going home and living under a real threat seemed to act as a mental recalibrator that liberated her from the unspecific but generalised anxiety she had been experiencing. It backs up the theory that in times of trauma such as war, there's no space for the many free-floating mental health issues a relatively stable society seems to suffer.

A smart new take on the fashion front

As I showed a new piece of clothing to a friend the other day, she pronounced it 'Just Smart Enough'. Love that. It's much better than Smart Casual.

Just Smart Enough means it's ideal when you want to look dressed up but not over the top, because it has a little something – in this case a fringed hem – that elevates it from the everyday.

Just Smart Enough, though, is not like so many smart things that hang reproachfully in the wardrobe, so smart that you hardly ever find an occasion to wear them.

Revenge of the Aussie crocodiles

Crocodiles have gone from being so scarce in Australia that they needed protection in the 1970s, to being so numerous that they are going to need to be culled

On the beware of your wishes front, consider Australia's crocodile situation. 

Once regarded as an endangered species after they were hunted so much for their skin, there were only a few thousand of them by the time protective measures were put into place in the 1970s.

Now there are so many saltwater crocodiles around, injuring and killing people, that they are going to have to be culled. And we thought we had it tough with rampaging cows.

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