NO DRUGS AND NO SKIING

Why Age Is No Barrier To A Life Of Risk

As a man already into my forties and no sign of letting up, I am often
asked the secret of long life. The answer is simple: I don't ski and I
don't take drugs. Of course you might point out that the average person
stands more chance of being killed crossing a road than plunging into a
bottomless crevasse while trying to adjust an inferior brand of snow
goggle, or 'freebasing' crack cocaine with its attendant dangers of
forgetting to eat properly and being shot by someone for not paying your
bills. Still, as I always say, it's never too late to forge one's soul anew
in the white-hot crucible of extreme living. Maybe I am already drifting
into a lifestyle deliciously tainted with risk. I did go ice-skating last
year. And according to The Observer 's recent 'Drugs Uncovered' supplement,
adult Britons of all ages (which by definition must surely include me at
some point) have never felt more comfortable about spliffing it up large
and so on at the weekend with a view to laughing at some imagined hilarity
for a few hours in the company of like-minded friends with no homes to go
to. Ah, this snorting life!

But I'm not entirely happy about the chivying tone of the modern British
Establishment's new war on petty drug-avoiders such as myself. For a start,
taking illegal drugs is still pretty much, um... illegal, so you can't do
it in pubs yet, and I'm pretty sure my wife would take a dim view of me
smoking one of those big pipes in the house and talking more rubbish than
normal in front of the children. And, come on - can it really be that much
better than going for a drink and being sick on the way home?

At least you know where you are with a drink. Well, beer anyway. It tastes
nice and is the ideal accompaniment to all known crisps. Plus, the more you
have, the better it gets, unlike drugs, where the effect wears off the
minute you think you're having a great time. And apparently some kinds of
drugs are made of nothing but coffee granules and builders' debris, which
will seem very poor value to anyone thinking of swapping over from
Guinness, a legal sedative that can still be had for under ?2 a pint in
some parts of the country.

On the other hand, I am grudgingly beginning to recognise that staggering
out of pubs and swaying back and forth in the Liverpool Street Station
branch of McDonald's as a prelude to snoring your head off on the Friday
night drunks' train with your mouth open does not represent the height of
dignity once you've reached the age of people carriers, second mortgages
and trying to look like the attentive type at school functions.

So, drugs. What have you got, and when can I start? I note, from all
available research, that the reason most people give for initially dabbling
with drugs is 'curiosity' ('Hmm, what's this?' I imagine them saying. 'I
wonder what would happen if I injected some in my leg...'). But life being
short, and curiosity being a luxury for the feckless young, I think I might
just have to read the small print in the sales brochure. OK, here we are.

First up, heroin. Clearly this is right out. I know Keith Richards keeps
himself looking boyishly turned out on it but I couldn't be doing with all
that lying around in my own filth when I'm supposed to be at the car wash.
Ecstasy? Well, on the upside, it's a good way of getting on hugging terms
with people at the watercooler, but I believe the music can be very
repetitive. LSD sounds like fun, though you do have to factor in the
possibility of mistaking yourself for a pterodactyl or a helicopter
(depending on the user's hobbies and interests) and jumping off a high
building. LSD is not something you can easily do at lunchtime.

Which leaves cocaine - quick, clean, crisp, white and hip, you can start at
any age and it doesn't make you fall over. Perfect. Cocaine is the very
tennis of drugs! Poor old beer, by contrast, is the clodhopping,
mud-spattered Sunday morning league division two hockey. How can it compete?

Do I want to be lucid, sharp and amusing or leaden-tongued, out of focus
and conspicuously avoided by women? No contest. I can hardly wait till
Boots get some in. I'm sure it's only a matter of time.