Ramblings

Deep breath, here goes. Three true confessions.

• I’m not a vegetarian
• I’m married to my partner
• I’ve never smoked cannabis

Shocked? Maybe not. Anyone who knows me won’t be at all surprised. But to my brother these are dirty little secrets. He’s much involved in environmental issues, and is the kind of socially conscious person who is likely to shun meat. His partner has a different surname, but they have in fact been married for nearly fifty years. He was put off smoking by his mother’s forty a day habit, so has passed on the joints and spliffs without partaking.

Whether it is a confession – or scandal – depends who’s making it. The cop from Village People being “inned” as straight. The blow to Johnny Cash’s tough persona when it was revealed that he had never really done time. Tom Robinson falling in love with the wrong person.

Consider too the case of Michael Gove. During the 2019 Conservative leadership campaign he had to confess that he had taken cocaine when he was younger. This proved damaging to his campaign because it was at odds with his sober, technical brand. Meanwhile no-one batted an eyelid when Boris Johnson was asked about claims he had taken cocaine at university by Marie Claire magazine in 2008, and replied simply “That was when I was 19.” Boris will Boris. So unfair.

Such a delicate art, confession. Confess something truly dreadful, like setting fire to a major public building or hit-and-run and your friends will stop talking to you. If it’s too tame – like Theresa May’s famous “running through fields of wheat” you will be ridiculed as a goody two-shoes. Many a priest has wished they could tell the penitent to come back when they have something interesting.

(Many a priest has had more to confess than their penitents, but that’s another story.)

So I’ve given this some thought. If someone were to ask me the worst thing I’ve done, my answer is ready. Smoking cannabis. Wait, what?

Hear me out, it’s the perfect confession. Slightly edgy, illegal but nobody cares. And I can hide any worse sins I might or might not have committed behind it. None of your damn business anyway.

On this subject, did I tell you about George? Not a bad fellow, really, but with a cavalier attitude to the law when he finds it inconvenient. His mother had been intrigued by what she had heard about cannabis, and expressed a semi-serious wish to try it when she reached 80. She made it past that age, but went to her grave innocent of that substance. George is determined not to repeat her mistake. He has resolved to procure some gummies from a sympathetic source, and try them out as part of his imminent 70th birthday celebrations. He promises to let me know how it goes.