Jim
struggled home with his bag of shopping, it was heavy and the sifting rain made
his walk back pretty miserable. He hoped
that Nell, his wife, would weave her magic with the bag’s contents and make his
efforts worthwhile. She had packed him
off with a list of ingredients for a number of baking projects and Jim reinforced
his resolve with thoughts of her plump muffins and succulent apple turnover. He picked his way through the puddles to the
front door, fumbled with the key and gratefully stepped out of the wet.
The
bank of sensors in the hall, set at knee height to monitor the contents of all
incoming groceries, buzzed and flashed predictions of imminent doom. One after another the display units declared
Fat Alert - Butter Detected; Allergy Probability - Wheat Flour Found; Fructose
Warning - Cooking Apples Present and Processed Meat Danger - Sausagemeat
Hazard.
The
new “Dame Sally” Dietary Vice Alarm, the most unforgiving model yet, was
connected to a central computer which downloaded new information
constantly. For example the Red Meat
sensor which had maintained a benign silence for so long had recently developed
a particularly shrill note. The Dairy cell barely knew whether it was
coming or going: triggered by butter today, it may well fall silent on the
matter tomorrow. Jim half expected it to
self-destruct over the fat content v. calcium benefit calculation in the great
cheese debate.
After
the fridge had reprimanded him for using full milk in his tea and the larder
gave him a bollocking for taking a solitary digestive, Jim braced himself for
the savage admonishing he would receive from the ceiling monitor in the
sitting-room. This remarkably sensitive
device was programmed to detect the merest scintilla of alcohol and Jim was
contemplating a cleansing ale which, God knows, he felt he had earned. At the first hiss of escaping pressure,
before the cap had rattled satisfyingly onto the sideboard, the alarm went into
electronic apoplexy.
Nell
heard the racket and requested a large one from her husband. The second that the cap came off the gin the
sensors went into full scale banshee mode and the screen flashed
Cirrhosis! Obesity! Cancer! Brain Damage! and any other infirmity
it could blame on a drink. The device
also kept a tally of units consumed per week and blared, Amber Warning: Ten
Units Used! AFD Required!
An
AFD was the alarm’s shorthand for Alcohol Free Day. Like all governments and bureaucracies, these
monitors too communicated in acronyms.
They had been compulsorily installed by order of an umbrella
organization within the government called the National Enjoyment Restriction
Department, NERD for short, coincidently reflecting the type of cheerless,
small-minded pen-pusher who would take on such a task. The execution of the order was delegated to
the Sector Promoting Health Indoctrination Nationally Controlling & Taxing
Alcohol, SPHINCTA which, curiously, also spoke volumes about its operatives. The trouble with such concerns is that they
attract zealots from outside their offices who form amateur counterparts in
hateful support. These coagulate into
bigger entities and the government, typically divesting itself of expense and
responsibility, farmed out the task of supervising the paperwork and collating
the data to the British Association Supporting Total Alcohol Restriction
Discontinuance & Sacrifice. Yup. You might wonder why nobody had checked the
suitability of the acronyms, but the collective senses of humour, fun and
warmth in the assembled multitude of staff combined across the three lumbering,
monolithic organizations would, in the incomparable descriptive words of Bill
Bryson, “fit comfortably inside a proton and still leave room for an echo.”
Nobody would have noticed.
Taking
his life in his hands Jim took a long, refreshing gulp of beer and idly
considered if a glass or two of red with supper might be in order. He ambled through to the kitchen to deliver
Nell her G & T and found her preparing greens to go with their shepherd’s
pie. This was a family favourite, once
deemed nutritious and a great way to use up leftovers, but now triggered dire
warnings on the “Dame Sally” kitchen screen.
High GI from the mash which, uh-oh, also contained butter; a red meat
alert for the pie’s delicious filling and a whoa, what’s this - watch out for
vitamin k in your greens? He’d only just
consigned grapefruit, an erstwhile super-food, to the dustbin of forbidden
delights because of the statin he took every evening. This was becoming confusing.
It
was Jim’s turn to cook tomorrow and it was worrying him already. The plan had been to produce fish and chips;
not something they had often, but fish was still alright for you, wasn’t
it? I mean, if you use sustainable fish
and the right sort of fat in the fryer?
Heeding the old animal fat warning Jim had changed to vegetable oil for
a while, secure in the knowledge that poly-unwossnames were good for you but
saturated ones are not. Now this
information had been stood on its head by a proper scientist who had said that
owing to changes the veg oil underwent at high temperature, actually it would
be less bad for you to use lard after all.
Eh?
Apparently
an hour in front of the telly is, guess what, bad for you - too sedentary or
some such, so Jim and Nell retired early.
Unsurprisingly troubled and unable to sleep, the pair discussed this
weird turn. What confused Nell most was
that in almost every case a well-respected, fully-qualified talking head would
declare, eat red meat/drink wine/enjoy a little butter, only to be countered by
an equally experienced “expert” in the same field whose opinions were
diametrically opposed to those of his illustrious colleague. Whom do you believe, she wondered, if those
trained and paid handsomely to help us can’t agree themselves?
Jim
contended that not one of them, however they had interpreted the evidence, took
any interest in our happiness. Eat this
- it might be better for your heart/liver/brain; avoid that or it might give
you any one of an impressive range of fatal conditions… but there is no
consideration for your soul. How much
does being happy or miserable affect your health?
Eventually
they grumbled themselves to sleep but in the morning after a virtually toxic
bacon sandwich, they made their determined way out to the shed while the
kitchen alarms wailed inconsolably. Each
grabbed a hammer and, laughing for the first time in weeks, smashed their
useless, intrusive, confusing, killjoy “Dame Sally” unit to dust. Glorious silence.
Today
was going to be a very good day. Well
worth raising a glass to that, for the conclusion they had reached the night
before was that a little of what you fancy does you good, just as Grandma had
been saying all along.
