Second opinion
I REMEMBER, with all the vagueness with which the human memory is so infuriatingly endowed, that I was once taught the elements of the science of ecology. It seemed to involve throwing a strange contraption at random on to the ground in rural Pembrokeshire and then crawling after it on one's hands and knees.
The contraption, as I recall, was a square metal frame divided into smaller squares by a wire mesh. One then enu- merated the species of plant and insect which happened to fall into each of the little squares. Once they were counted, the contraption was thrown on to the ground somewhere else and the enumer- ation repeated. Gradually, a picture of the ecosystem was supposed to build up in one's mind. Mainly I learnt how muddy Pembrokeshire was.
What, you may ask, brought these fas- cinating memories flooding back to me after more than 30 years' absence from my consciousness? Curiously enough, it was a walk from my hospital to the prison. Although this walk is short, I find it of unceasing interest. For example, there are the ever-changing graffiti. On the occasion when I recalled my first and last faltering steps in a science which, though I didn't know it then, was soon to become fashionable, the pillar box had been inscribed with the following words: CRAIG IS A WANCKER, to which someone, in a different hand, had appended: SO IS LEE.
On this occasion also, one could tell that the weather had been inclement of late. I deduced this from the fact that there were no shards of glass on the kerbside, which meant that no cars had been broken into within the last week. Although car thieves often claim to be addicted to their activities, as heroin addicts are to heroin, fear of the with- drawal symptoms is not so great as to drive them out into the wind and the rain, much less the sleet and the snow. The principal cause of car theft in this country is thus mild weather. Goodness knows what will happen to our cars if global warming becomes a reality.
As I was contemplating the immense quantities of litter on the ground from the hospital to the prison, it suddenly occurred to me that much could be learned about the English diet at the end of the 20th century by using the contrap- tion which I had used in the Pem- brokeshire countryside all those years ago. Just cast it down at random on the pavement, the road, the gutter, the front gardens of the houses, the pieces of wasteland, the parking area in front of the group medical practice, and even the hedgerows, and all kinds of important facts would stand scientifically revealed: for example, the ratio of chocolate con- sumed to potato crisps, the most popular chocolate bar and the most popular flavour of potato crisps (my unsystematic observations lead me to suspect that it must be either cheese and onion or salt and vinegar). There is much to be learned also about the drinking habits of the English. To judge by the cartons, tins and bottles strewn on the ground between the two great institutions in which I work, I should say Ribena is closely followed by Tennant's Super and Thunderbird.
One finding rather surprised me. The English clearly prefer junk food to sex. There was only one used condom in the 800 yards between the hospital and the prison. Since it may be assumed that it is not considerations of hygiene which pre- vent them from discarding their preven- tatives in the street, one must conclude that for every act of sexual intercourse the English consume approximately 800 packets of crisps, 500 bars of chocolate and 50 cans, bottles and cartons of drink, both soft and alcoholic. In the circum- stances, contraception appears almost redundant.
Theodore Dalrymple
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