AFTERMATH: Cokeywokeydoodah

Hi, thanks for dropping by.  You may know, the first 22 instalments of this blog (Jan to April 2013) are the text of my ebook, 'How To Become A Crack Addict', which you can read here, or buy on amazon, if you're into that kind of thing.  Nowadays, as you can see, this blog is the almost-daily musings of yours truly, Benjamin of Turnham Green...

COKEYWOKEYDOODAH

Why have so many newspapers shown an almost reverential sympathy for Nigella Lawson's recent admission that she has used cocaine, and, heaven forfend, cannabis?

Could it be a composite reason, a jumbled assortment of facts like she's rich, vaguely attractive (though with a scary resemblance to her father), the plaintive in a case of domestic manhandling by her even richer ex-partner, Charles Saatchi?  Or is it because she's a sacred matriarch, who at least kept her dabblings within the plush confines of her labyrinthine lairs, and, what's more, is a proficient marinader of peach-halves in a spice cordial? 

Or could it be because the chatterati see something of themselves in her non-addicted relationship with various white powders?  One of the clichés I begrudgingly internalised in rehab was 'addiction loves company', and, although Nigella says she wasn't/isn't an addict, cocaine is a vain drug, whispering, by way of an introduction to the novice, 'you don't need me, it's ok, you can put me down when you like...'  This is true for some, whilst, for others, that first line is like the grooves left behind a skier, kicking off from an alpine peak, only to tumble akimbo, snowblind, a chaos of flailing limbs, into an icy gusset half a mile below...

How many of Nigella's attributes would have to be removed before she became the addled urchin that many of these same newspapers call spongers, dishevelled in day-centre denim, skulking into Cash Converters with someone else's hi-fi, or their own flat-screen TV, acquired by misappropriating their ill-gotten disability benefits...but that's a different narrative.

Celebrity is fragile...it comes with built-in fracture-lines, imminent obsolescence as standard.  Some people are better at being it, playing it, and Nigella is probably as proficient at this as she is aerating a salmon soufflé for some sophisticated soiree, in a world where cocaine's not so much a drug, more of a dessert.  But, as with any too-rich tiramisu, overindulgence can lead to regret, a circular state of being where luxury turns to lechery, delight, debauchery, the cure for our woes, the cause.  The boom of cocaine always comes with a bust, a gross, groggy comedown, where remorse and resentment fester, and it's always someone else that's to blame...something daddy maybe knows about.

And, to close, here is a song, if you fancy a listen...

Run Out Of Drugs Again

And that, as far as I know, is all I have to say today.