At a time when the NHS is struggling to survive – never mind evolve to meet the needs of a society undreamed-of at its inception – as far as Generation Selfie is concerned, if you caused your illness, you pay for your treatment. End of.
None of this bleeding-heart, touchy- feely stuff acknowledging the poverty trap or ignorance or bog-standard depression or just plain bad luck.
It might be a bit hardline, but it comes as something of a tonic after the acquired helplessness created by a broken welfare system.
As Benefits Street so deftly demonstrated, for too many people, working still doesn’t pay, despite Iain Duncan Smith’s ongoing attempts to reform the welfare state, a process he has compared with William Wilberforce’s 18th-century campaign against the slave trade; by which I take it he means, “This is going to be bloody difficult”.
But having said that, the oversimplistic “fat people should pay for their own gastric bands because they are greedy” and “alcoholics should stump up for their own liver transplants” lead to further moral judgments.
“You should have thought about the risk of skin cancer before you booked that villa in Greece”, and “You’re old, it makes more sense to spend all the resources on babies, who, let’s face it, are also cuter”, is the kneejerk response of those of an age when they, quite rightly, consider themselves immortal.
But I think I speak for everyone planning to live beyond 70 when I say we’d prefer a more compassionate National Health Service, thanks.
Shocking figures newly released by the Office for National Statistics show an abrupt rise in “lifestyle” cancers. Liver cancer leapt by 66 per cent from 2003 to 2012, cancers of the mouth are up by 48 per cent, cancer of the womb by 31 per cent and kidney cancer by 46 per cent.
While some of the increase is due to our ageing population, there is no denying that over-consumption of food and booze, cigarettes and sun exposure are doing their worst.
We’re all accustomed to the “how many units of alcohol do you drink a week?” question and the “do you smoke?” inquiry. It’s no exaggeration to say we can expect a questionnaire longer than the average A-level paper. How many pizzas do you eat a month? What’s your daily biscuit intake? Please list the destination of all holidays taken from the age of 11. Include all sun factors used and details of your working.
Can it really be so difficult to change our lifestyles in a bid to not just stay alive, but to feel alive?
Eat less, exercise more. Drink in moderation. Don’t smoke. It’s hardly rocket science, but according to the World Cancer Research Fund, around 80,000 cancer cases could be prevented in this country every year.
I hope it’s not too late for my generation, but for Generation Right, perhaps there’s an upside to their unsentimentality about the NHS.
Their sense of personal responsibility, coupled with a collective agreement that the NHS can’t and won’t fix everyone, might just be enough to prompt them to turn away from excess and choose a healthier path.
Man and mobile are one at last
Hailing, as he does, from north of the border, my husband is not given to public displays of emotion over anything but the really important stuff: Culloden, Tunnock’s teacakes, England losing to Uruguay.
So when on Thursday this week he turned to me and confirmed, misty-eyed as MacDiarmid’s Drunk Man Looking at the Thistle, that he had just undergone the biggest epiphany since the Act of Union, he meant it.
Don’t panic, he wasn’t suddenly persuaded to vote Yes in the forthcoming J K Rowling referendum on economic disas… sorry, independence. No, on Thursday he went and got himself a mobile phone.
I say “got himself”, but I orchestrated his smartphone rite of passage by selflessly gifting him my sleek new iPhone upgrade.
It was heartbreaking (technologically speaking), but worth it just to witness the conversation in the Carphone Warehouse when my spouse strode in, brandishing a goose quill and asking to place his signature on a contract.
“How many, like, minutes do you spend on your mobile every day?” asked the assistant.
“None. I’ve never had a mobile before.”
“Yeah, but like, how many texts do you send every day?”
“None. I’ve never had a mobile before.”
“Yeah, but like, how many gigs do you use every day?”
And so on.
So he has a phone. For him, it’s Year Zero. And for me?
People, the waiting – in car parks and shops, railway stations and foreign ports, in hospitals and hotels – is finally over. I only hope it was worth it.
Give me some of what you’re on, Victoria, even if it is pink quartz
The future’s bright. In fact, the future’s glittering. Put down your entrepreurial manuals! Bin your business books! Regift that new-and-still-reproachfully-unread Thomas Piketty economics hardback!
Victoria Beckham has spoken. And what has she said? She has said she uses crystals to promote success when she stages her fashion shows.
Yes folks, pink quartz is the new black tourmaline; pop them in your handbag and fame and a photogenic family fathered by a hot husband will be yours, too. Possibly.
It’s easy to laugh. So I do. But I shouldn’t. I, too, have had recourse to the realms of the bizarre and the bonkers.
To wit: I have bought (white) witches’ herbs online and hidden them beneath my daughter’s pillow in an attempt to cure her chronic insomnia.
When faced with paralysis after an accident, my first response (after chanting a decade of the rosary) was to insist my husband contact a faith healer. Oh, and I telephoned a diviner and asked him for help in finding my lost wedding ring and my vintage Cartier watch.
And I bought a money plant in order to – well, that one speaks for itself, really. I initially kept it outdoors, where it failed to thrive in the cold. Two days after I moved it indoors, I won £1,350 worth of premium bonds. Yay! Sadly, it has since died.
I like to think all this reflects a laudable “there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio” open-mindedness rather than out-and-out lunacy.
I’m a practising Catholic, but I still believe the Holy Ghost isn’t necessarily the only one. When we moved into our house, 11 years ago, there was a crystal hanging from a nail and I haven’t dared move it.
So Victoria, whether you are harnessing the spiritual power of pink quartz or just fiddling about with it in your expensively tailored pocket, I salute you. Or I would, if my fingers weren’t permanently crossed.
Coffee bars are not for kids
From the moment my younger daughter could reach out and grab a wooden brick, she would extend her arm right past it and strain towards my coffee mug instead.
By the time she was cruising round the furniture, her mission wasn’t to strengthen her chubby toddler legs, but to seek out and drink any cold dregs she could find.
Now aged five, she has an illicit passion for strong coffee that would put the Brazilian national team to shame. Three heaped spoonfuls of Nescafé? That’ll do nicely.
I certainly don’t let her drink coffee often. But if she could, she’d be a little caffeine junkie, while her 12-year-old sister has a crippling mocha-latta-chocca-frappuccino habit that costs £3.10 a go.
Maybe this is why I feel uncomfortable about Costa opening small coffee bars in secondary schools, even though it is my favourite of the high street chains. On the scale of stimulants, moreover, the caffeine in coffee is hardly a huge concern; there are 40mg of it in a 100g cup of filtered coffee.
That’s twice the caffeine content of 100g of brewed tea, but “energy shots” such as Ammo contain 570mg per 100g and Jolt Endurance shots have a caffeine level of 339mg per 100g.
But there’s a world of difference between sixth- formers carefully budgeting for coffee in the common room and schoolchildren splashing their (or rather our) cash on the sort of high-end, bespoke beverages most of us couldn’t have afforded in our first jobs. Possibly even our second.
There are so few pleasures that are the exclusive domain of grown-ups. Please let’s keep good coffee one of them.
Generation Selfie might hold the secret to saving the NHS
