ME& my worst week and a national debate on drug harms

Well I’ve had a week from hell at work – as part of my job I look after the press for an advisory body called the ACMD (stands for the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs). On Thursday the chair of the ACMD, Prof Nutt decided to promote his academic work on various BBC programmes and national newspapers claiming LSD and Ecstasy were safer than alcohol (link to some coverage: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/136832/LSD-less-dangerous-than-drink- ).

This claim was based on his harm index which is a great league table of all drugs, including alcohol and tobacco based on deaths relevant to consumption.

While Prof Nutt is well within his right to air his academic concerns, he didn’t take into account the role he holds as chair of the ACMD and how their advice inputs into Government drugs policy. While the overall message from Government is that drugs are dangerous and illegal – the last thing you want one of your advisors to be saying in the media is that it’s safer to take LSD and Ecstasy than have a drink – hence the fall out begins, with yours truly involved.

As a result he was going to be asked to resign, however this wasn’t going to happen until the following Monday. This is where my bad week begins – I get a call on Friday morning confirming some interviews for Prof Nutt in his capacity as chair of the ACMD to talk about the dangers of ketamine with BBC Radio 1 on Monday. Ten minutes later Prof Nutt calls me to say I needed to cancel them as he’d been called into a meeting to talk about the repercussions to his media rant. I call my contact at BBC Radio 1 but he’s in a meeting so I fire off an email apologising and cancelling the interview. Now this journalist at BC Radio 1, I would consider a good contact, someone who I have a good, trusted working relationship with, someone who I speak with a couple of times a week – so I feel I need to offer some explanation to why I’ve had to cancel. So in the email I stated that it looked like Prof Nutt might be facing some repercussions.

My friendly contact only then passes my email onto the BBC key Home Affairs correspondent, who then blogs the Prof Nutt is facing the sack. (Link to the offending blog: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2009/10/nutt_faces_sack.html )

This then lead to the Monday meeting to be brought forward to Friday afternoon and the Home Sec sending him a letter asking him to resign. Prof Nutt didn’t want to go quietly and has since been courting the media meaning this was the lead story in the UK media on Friday night and all over the weekend and has blow up into a politicians vs. scientist story that doesn’t seem to be running out of steam. It has lead to urgent statements in the Houses of Parliament, Prime Minister being asked questions and a whole raft of eminent scientist commenting and firing off letters to the Prime Minister via the media.

I can tell you I felt so guilty for letting this slip on Friday, I spent most of Saturday hiding under my duvet wishing this would go away, only for it to continue to still be a top story for the majority of this week. Despite Prof Nutt’s fait already confirmed when he appeared in print and broadcast on the Thursday hailing the safety of LSD, I felt that my email had gotten him sacked. I took it personally and the weight of the world was on my shoulders. I must point out that his position as chair was unpaid and he’s a highly respected brain scientist so will not be on the breadline due to being asked to resign.

With hindsight I’m feeling a little better about it and in a way my fuck up meant Prof Nutt had a good shot at the media to get his point across before any politician spoke against him. But on the down side my unblemished work record now has a nasty mark on it. The lesson learnt is never trust a journalist no matter how friendly you think you are with them.

ME& my M.E. scare

Well I don't know how I've managed to get through this week as up until today I have felt like the energy has been sucked out of me. I have been sleepy, lack lustre and totally drained. On Monday I was off work and needed to have an afternoon nap before I baby sat for a friend. Then on Tuesday I was in bed by 8.30pm. By Wednesday I felt like a zombie and I got home from work at 4.30pm and went to bed - only getting up for an hour because G forced me.

I really felt that something was wrong with me and even began to convince myself I had M.E. - it was only when I was complaining to G that he asked if I was taking the any tablets. I told him I'd been taking the antihistamines from the draw in the kitchen in the morning.

It only turns out that these are the drowsy kind, so my M.E. theory was short lived.

ME& G's b'day part 1

Well tomorrow is G's birthday so today I decided to treat him to lunch at the Oxo Tower, followed by the Pop Art exhibition at the Tate Modern.

Lunch was fabulous, although it was too cold for the terrace at the Oxo Tower. The Pop Art exhibtion was fun, especially watching all the women averting their eyes from the penetration shots in the Jeff Koons explicit room. Its strange how porn blow up on canvas 6ft by 7ft is called art.

ME& the funniest TV programme ever

I have jsut watched the first episode of "Modern Family" and it was histerical. Ususally I find US comedies to be rather safe but this was really out there. I urge anyone to watch it - its on Sky 1 on Thursday's at 8pm - see the trailer.

ME& a belated catch up

OMG – I am getting so lazy when it comes to posting updates on my blog. I don’t know why, maybe it’s the fact that summer is over and its dark when I get up for work and dark when I get home, maybe I’m suffering from SAD.

Anyway what have I been up to – Well Scalea with my Mum was ok in September. We only fell out once which was a lot less than I thought we would. I was shocked at home much alcohol my mum drinks. I wouldn’t say she’s an alcoholic but she is alcohol dependant – her daily intake consisted of four beers, a litre of wine and a third of a bottle of Baileys and with all that she wouldn’t seem drunk. Our only argument was fuelled by her drinking one minute we were having a laugh and then the next she turned. I ended up shouting at her and directly stating that this had been brought on by her drinking. It was total role reversal I was speaking to her as thou she was a naught child. I must say I was apprehensive about spending 7 days together but we managed it – I did give a big sigh when I checked her in to go home to Edinburgh.

What else have I been up to – well my friend Louise celebrated her b’day and took us all go-kart racing. I’d only been go-karting once before and that was before I’d learnt to drive and was shit at it. This time I faired a lot better coming fifth out of ten in my first race and third in my second race. I was happy with my positioning especially as I bet G in both races. You really get into it and feel the need for speed – the only draw back was the rather smelly racing jump suits you have to wear. One of which had a rather speculative stain in the crotch area. We all stayed away from wearing that one.

It’s G’s b’day this weekend but I’m not sure what we are doing – he is doing his I’m so depressed about getting older routine.

Other than this I’ve been very good, hardly drinking, no naught drug taking – just work, work and more work – I’m still managing to avoid going to the gym.

ME& my friend Grace

My old college and good friend Grace who is a noted, award winning fashion stylist is moving into TV presenting below is her first stab -really well done.

On|Off TV DAY FOUR from LowFatFilms on Vimeo.

ME& reflections on a heavy weekend

Well what a bank holiday weekend. For me it started on Thursday with our annual work summer party, as usual I drank too much and ended up caning it as well. Despite getting to bed at 3am on Friday, luckily I didn’t need to start work on Friday until noon but I was still in a bad way. Needless to say I went to bed fairly early on Friday and didn’t get out of my bed until after 11am on Saturday morning.

Despite all that sleep, I still felt rough from Thursday night and Friday morning. Luckily we weren’t panning to head off down to Brighton until 3pm. When we got to Brighton it was a quick change of clothes then out for something to eat before hitting the bars and the cocaine again. Despite being with Louise and Simon who are a laugh I just wasn’t getting into it. G, Simon and Louise all seemed to be in on the funny jokes but I spent most of the night looking miserable.

Even the surprising abundance of guy’s that were smaller than me and a contingent of bad trannies in the disco I spent most of the night looking non-pulsed, neither on a high or low with the drugs numbing the drunken effects of the vodka.

We headed back to Simon’s at about 2am and then got to bed at 3am, and awoke about 11am. Despite being treated to a lovely organic Sunday roast before driving home I still felt like shit and this feeling lasted for the rest of Sunday and Monday and is still lingering.

My conclusion is that over the last couple of months I’ve actually done quiet a bit of class A narcotics and I need to knock it on the head as the effects just aren’t agreeing with me and I’m not actually having that great a time on them. I’ve been down this road before and I know they don’t make me feel any better and the person I become on them isn’t a nice one.