Second opinion

I WAS being escorted last Saturday from the prison gate to the prison hospital when I looked up at that little tent of blue we doctors call the sky.

`Lovely weather,' I said to my escorting officer who, to judge from the proportions of his abdomen, was not a nature-lover. Indeed, I should be rather surprised if he were even aware of its existence.

`Too good to be in here, sir,' he replied.

`Tell me,' I asked, 'what is the right weather to be in prison?'

`You've got a point there, sir,' he said, unlocking the door to the hospital with its notice reminding all staff that security is their responsibility.

Before long, I went to that prison with- in a prison, 'the block', where inmates who are accused of having offended against prison discipline are kept until a governor hears their case, a process known as adjudication.

First, however, they have to be 'fitted for adjudication' by the doctor, and declared medically suitable for solitary confinement. As usual, the question is asked the wrong way round, the real question being, are they suitable for any- thing else?

`Doc,' said the first of the alleged vio- lators of the rules, 'I need some medica- tion.'

`What for?' I asked.

`My head's a shed,' he replied.

Insofar as a shed is usually a repository for junk, this was no doubt an accurate description; but what he really meant, I think, was that he was in bits, that his head needed sorting out. I sympathised with him, but said I thought that medica- tion was not the answer to his problem, whereupon he lost it and went into one, threw his dolly out of the pram and became very mouthy, almost gobby, in fact.

`What's the f—ing use of a f—ing doctor what won't give you f— all?'

And thus the whirligig of time has well and truly brought in its revenges, for not so many years ago we doctors were criti- cised for too liberal use of the tranquillis- er chlorpromazine, popularly known as the liquid cosh.

I read the chargesheets against this alleged miscreant: 'On the nth day of J— you did use insulting language towards Officer X, namely, "Who the fuck do you think you are, cunt, you can kiss my black arse, you wanker." ' `He didn't go to finishing school, did he?' I said.

`Too f—ing right, he didn't,' said one of the officers.

A short while later, I left the prison and went shopping for the usual basics, such as balsamic vinegar, rocket and cia- batta.

Having completed my subsistence shopping, I was walking in the direction of the bookshop when I noticed an ener- getic bicyclist in apple-green Lycra weav- ing his way between the traffic, of which he at length burst free. He whizzed by me and lots of other pedestrians.

`F— off! F— off!' he shouted as he flew by.

Who or what should f— off, I won- dered. The cars? The pedestrians? The world? Existence itself?

It occurred to me then that, since past civilisations, such as the Beaker Culture, are sometimes named by archaeologists for their principal surviving cultural arte- facts, our civilisation should henceforth be known as 'the Fuck Off Culture'. Any- one who disagrees with me can . . . well, you know. . . .

Theodore Dalrymple