How to Deal with Addicts

Competitors were asked to give a set of rules, also a suitable compulsory treatment, for addiction to one of the following: ballet; Scottish nationalism; football pools; conti- nental cooking; bicycling; opera; contemporary furniture; patent medicines.

'CAN do better' as a report on competitors' essays this week is as far as one can indulgently go. Work tended to be either Pedestrian or facetious and sometimes both. Even those usually at or near the top of the form (Blishen, E., was most regrettably Absent) did not make as good a showing as We have come to expeat from them, and flashes of brilliance were rare.

Scottish nationalism elicited the best entries including one from Edinburgh itself recommending as a treatment the com- Pulsory translation of Shakespeare into ;Lallans (P.M.). Football pools were also Popular but failed to produce a winner. Symptoms noted in the addict included 'feverish consultation of the less reputable daily papers' (Guy Kendall) and the appear- ance of suffering from unreliable bankers (F. G. Hale). As a treatment for chronic bicyclism the loosening of important nuts O n the patient's machine was advocated by R. G. Best and by Allan M. Laing, who added that the bicycle itself should be destroyed and forcibly replaced by a motor- car under the National Health scheme. Con- tinental cooking drew only a small entry (Perhaps too many .readers are themselves addicts) in which the most noteworthy came from R. B. Browning with his kill-or-cure remedy of a three weeks' compulsory course of yin rouge diable. No one suggested that the patient should be rubbed with garlic. The prize money is divided among E. C. Jenkins and H. A. C. Evans (£2 each) and Granville Garley (El).

(E. C. JENKINS) ADDICTION TO SCOTTISH NATIONALISM

The Macnaghten Rules for determining addiction to Scottish Nationalism require that the following conditions be fulfilled : 1. The suspected person foams at the mouth or shows other signs of acute distress when- ever the words 'England'. and 'English' can be interpreted as including 'Scotland' and 'Scottish.'

2. He has a severe kilt complex, harbours delusions about bagpipes, and continually complains about the paucity of Gaelic in the Light Programme.

3. He has a second-hand Gaelic Grammar in his trunk and secretly practises graffiti.

TREATMENT: Three weeks in an isolation hospital (staffed by monoglpt Gaels) in the Outer Hebrides. No Sassenachs, no English books or papers. No eggs and bacon, but porridge and haggis without stint, No trousers. Physiotherapy: Light exercises with the bag- pipes and small cabers. As the hospital does not come under the National Heath Scheme the presentation of the bill provides the thera- peutic shock that ensures no recurrence of the trouble.

(H. A. C. EVANS) ADDICTION TO BALLET RECOGNITION

Physical Signs: Male. Beard; high-necked sweater; allergy to surnames; sporadic speech italicisation; walks with a lisp.

Female. Low heels; propensity to attitudes; (young) vaccine facial expression; (older) mas- culinity in attire; surname allergy and speech italicisation.

Psychological Tests. 1, Auditory stimuli (observe reactions closely): Haskell; Ashton; Ninette; Rambert.

2. Associative Conceptions (verbal associa- tions to be given immediately; positive and negative reactions in brackets): Margot (Fonteyn/Asquith); Wells (Sadler's/Fargo); Garden (rovent/of Allah); Three (Cornered Hat/Blind Mice); Robert (Helpmann /the Bruce); Ria (bouchinska/Sylvia); Serge (Lifar/ suit).

TREATMENT

Homceopathic: 1. Compel subject to listen to records of Le Sacre du Printemps alternated with Casse Noisette for three hours without pause. 2. Compel subject to attend displays by pupils of suburban ballet schools.

Allopathic: 1. Compel male subject to lec- ture on and personally illustrate Ballet in an English country pub.

2. Subject should spend year among beauties of Nature, to eradicate addiction to beauties of artifice.

(GRANVILLE GARLEY)

How TO SPOT, AND CURE, A Scorrisx NATIONALIST A person shall be deemed AN ADDICT To SCOTTISH NATIONALISM if he-

1. Admits that he can tolerate the sound of bagpipes.

2. Thinks Robert Burns was a major poet.

3. Cannot pronounce the word 'Flodden' without wincing.

4. Reads Walter Scott's novels after the age of ten.

5. Says 'Britain' in contexts which properly demand the use of 'England.'

6. Refers to caber-tossing, haggis, sporrans, etc., without a smile.

TREATMENT

Compel the sufferer to live in Scotland for five years, or, in chronic cases, for life.