Funnily enough, the most fiercely anti-drugs people I came across there were the Dutch. They didn’t think dope was evil, they just thought that it was pathetic. For them, it was the dull, conversation-killing, boring thing that their parents did, or their parents’ loser friends, sneaking off to their coffee shops of an evening, like dim-witted old soaks heading to the boozer. There’s a lesson in that. I wonder what it could be?
That the terminally dull are attracted to dope and hootch?
That Hugo Rifkind is not a fan of the English Public House?
dim-witted old soaks heading to the boozer
Sounds good to me
conversation-killing?
Depends on your definition. In my experience dope can create a conversation out of the most mudane topic. Woe betide the clear headed person that has to listen to it though.
I don’t think the analogy works. Alcohol and bars are legal in the UK and quite obviously there are great swathes of the population who find them desirable and non-pathetic.
There’s a lesson in that. I wonder what it could be?
That the Dutch are taking the wrong drugs?
“of an evening?” Is such expression frequent in English today? In the U.S., while being perfectly
understandable, it’d be semi-archaic, heard only
among rural, mostly southern, Scotch-Irish “hill folk.” Personally, I like it.
gene: ‘of an evening’ is thoroughly au courant in British English vernacular. It’s a mild stylistic flourish, perhaps, but not like you suddenly broke out in Chaucerian rhyme.
And, God, he’s right. Druggies are so boring. Although for sheer please-Jesus-help-me-get-me-the-fuck-out-of-here-right-now nightmares coke fiends are way worse than stoners. But 14 years for peddling dope? I don’t think anyone could reasonably argue that locking a pot dealer up for more than a decade would contribute more to a healthy society than, say, strapping Jacqui Smith to a pole and machine-gunning her way beyond the point at which dental records would suffice to identify the corpse.