Clinging to the Wreckage

[storeynicholas]

The great British television chef and entertainer, Keith Floyd, died recently, at the age of 65 years. After a lifetime as a gourmet-gourmand and oenophile-toper, he apparently enjoyed a fine lunch with friends at a restaurant and, after several post-prandial cigarettes, he pegged out on the restaurant sofa. 65 isn't much of an age these days; it isn't even the Biblical three score years and ten but, given that Keith Floyd was going to die anyway, what a way to go!

In the modern age, it is fashionable to seek to extend one's days on earth to the very maximum that abstemiousness and careful living will allow. But is there any point?

I know of one man, who is now in his mid-eighties. In his youth he was 6 feet 2 inches tall, proportionately built, strong - and a great sportsman. He has always lived carefully. I had not seen him for many years but the last time that I saw him he was bent double, quavering on two sticks; he cannot go anywhere, do anything and he is in constant pain from a bone condition that he realizes was brought on by his earlier sporting activities. He is clinging to the wreckage.

I knew another man, also physically strong, whose big, jolly, gin-tanned face hove into view like a battleship making smoke - from his tobacco pipes and cigarettes - and he also generally had the food he liked and, as already suggested, gave the bottle some serious stick too. He did not live carefully. But he lived to be a perfectly active and fit 93 year old, still happily driving his car 3 months before he died. He lived as he chose; didn't cling to anything and let go when he had to.

I would never recommend anyone to be either such a hell-raiser that they are more likely than not to get emphysema or a crystalised liver nor to be (against their inclinations) totally abstemious of every little enjoyment for the sake of being able to sit on the edge of a Parker Knoll high chair, nappy-clad and spoon-fed in some half-forgotten corner of a mansion, converted to the 'care of the elderly' - and rattle on for several pointless, joyless years.

For some people, drink and tobacco are consolations through life - even to the extent that the quantities consumed might frighten many moderns but people are too easily frightened these days and the terrorism of the man with the gun or the man with the bomb is only one type of terrorist activity - the other is that employed by quasi-evangelical health freaks who bully us into believing that, if we abstain from this or that, we are not going to die at all. These terrorists murder joy and consolation.

Keith Floyd knew what he was doing; so did Ian Fleming and many like them - they made free choices to trade a long sunset in life for more consolation ….dare one say, more pleasure in the middle of it. I know whose side I am on.
NJS.

[JRLT]

His death is a sad loss. I well remember his programmes in the 80s. I was at school at the time and just beginning to grope my way towards the finer things in life. To me he seemed to represent the epitome of sophistication.

Naturally there were a couple of tribute programmes on UK tv with lots of clips from the old shows. The cooking looks pretty rough and ready now but the shows and their presenter held up well. A great wearer of a bow tie he had me scouring Jermyn Street the following weekend (sadly without finding anything attractive).

Keith Floyd was also a wearer of bespoke. I read somewhere (though I can't find a link) that he spent his BBC advance for the first series on a new blazer (a reefer jacket I suspect, to be precise) from his favoured tailor.

[Costi]

I had no doubt you were an excellent lawyer, NJS - but I would never have guessed who had hired you!

[shredder]

Well, I heard asceticism is a virtue of some sort.

[storeynicholas]

Drinkers do not come for as much stick as smokers. I don't know why. In the recent James Bond film, Casino Royale, Bond doesn't smoke anymore but he gets sky-high on booze and then drives and turns his car over on a public road - and that's OK. A pop star has just died by choking to death after a binge and that's put down to 'natural causes'! So excessive alcohol consumption still seems to be an acceptable social norm but the odd cigarette and you're a pariah. When dramatist Dennis Potter was dying, he gave a last interview and described a cigarette as a 'tube of joy'. Tallullah Bankhead eased off her beloved 100 Craven A a day habit and moved on to lighter Kents instead but, as they didn't have the kick, she upped the rate of consumption to 150 a day - and ended up with an oxygen mask in one hand and a cigarette in the other, alternating between the two. I think that we are entitled to find our own pleasures and take our own chances. Whatever happens, whether we live long or short lives, we pay a price.
NJS

[Costi]

Drinkers do not come for as much stick as smokers.

The "rules" are trying to protect THE OTHERS, but those who want to smoke or drink remain free to do it, and they are certainly not so shy as to need any ENCOURAGEMENT from the law to do it. There are laws saying I can't drive drunk, lest I might injure or kill someone innocent, so the law is there to protect THE OTHERS; nobody says I cannot drink all that I want, or jump off a cliff while drunk and kill myself. It's similar with smoking, the "stick" is there to protect THE OTHERS, while the smoker can smoke his lungs to death. However, rules and laws are there to be trespassed, and victims of car accidents caused by drunk drivers are probably as many as the lung cancer victims of unthoghtful smokers.
At any rate, I think it's the idea of getting sick and having to live with some terrible illness (be it lung emphysema or cirrhosis), rather than dying young that scares most people.
Perhaps your man in his mid-eighties practised the sports that now cripple him with as much enjoyment as you light your pipe, so you cannot blame him for depriving himself of life's pleasures...

[sartorius]

I'm afraid I don't buy the notion that we are "bullied" or "terrorised" into abstemiousness. It seems to me we are simply better educated about the risks. Given the option I'd rather make an informed choice (and call that terrorism if you like, but I'd describe it as empowerment) than live in a world where profiteering tobacco companies advertise the health "benefits" of smoking and suppress the medical evidence to the contrary.

There is also a wider issue, namely that most western countries have an ageing population whose healthcare must be paid for. The elderly are living longer and the burden on the taxpayer is increasing. All of us feel the effects of age eventually, and it's right that the taxpayer should care for the elderly, but it also makes sense to seek to reduce the cost of medical care by reducing those ailments which are eminently preventable. Taking this argument to its logical conclusion, it is actually rather selfish to ignore overwhelming medical evidence, in the pursuit of personal gratification, and then to expect the taxpayer to foot the bill. I don't wish to pay more tax. If encouraging the populous to avoid certain very high risk activities (i.e. those which are likely to kill them slowly, painfully and therefore expensively) is going to enable all of us to enjoy a better standard (and quality) of living, then it seems to me that is to be welcomed.

[storeynicholas]

Drinkers do not come for as much stick as smokers.

The "rules" are trying to protect THE OTHERS, but those who want to smoke or drink remain free to do it, and they are certainly not so shy as to need any ENCOURAGEMENT from the law to do it. There are laws saying I can't drive drunk, lest I might injure or kill someone innocent, so the law is there to protect THE OTHERS; nobody says I cannot drink all that I want, or jump off a cliff while drunk and kill myself. It's similar with smoking, the "stick" is there to protect THE OTHERS, while the smoker can smoke his lungs to death. However, rules and laws are there to be trespassed, and victims of car accidents caused by drunk drivers are probably as many as the lung cancer victims of unthoghtful smokers.
At any rate, I think it's the idea of getting sick and having to live with some terrible illness (be it lung emphysema or cirrhosis), rather than dying young that scares most people.
Perhaps your man in his mid-eighties practised the sports that now cripple him with as much enjoyment as you light your pipe, so you cannot blame him for depriving himself of life's pleasures...

This poor old thread started as a mere note of praise to a man who enjoyed his life; brought pleasure to millions, with his programmes; never hurt anybody (as far as I know), with his habits; knew the risks of his lifestyle and didn't cost the taxpayer anything in terms of long-term hospital care. It would be bad for my blood pressure to resist the debate - and this time it is not so political - and I shall not make more than this reference to modern Britain! The second main point that I made was that smokers get it far more in the neck than drinkers; socially; nearly morally. there is far less evidence that 'passive smoking' really causes harm to others than there is for the evidence that drunken drivers do. But the 'stick' is wielded increasingly against smokers, on the basis that they are 'harming' others. I am not sure that people with lung diseases and liver failure live to any great age - whereas the very careful and abstemious can and do - and become a burden to themselves. I am sure that the sporting man in my example did enjoy his sports but, at an earlier time, he had also drunk and smoked and all that I am saying is that, if he had drunk and smoked a bit more, he might have been carried off to peace before now - his refrain having become that he is just waiting, as a cripple and a little impatiently, to die.
NJS

[storeynicholas]

I'm afraid I don't buy the notion that we are "bullied" or "terrorised" into abstemiousness. It seems to me we are simply better educated about the risks. Given the option I'd rather make an informed choice (and call that terrorism if you like, but I'd describe it as empowerment) than live in a world where profiteering tobacco companies advertise the health "benefits" of smoking and suppress the medical evidence to the contrary.

There is also a wider issue, namely that most western countries have an ageing population whose healthcare must be paid for. The elderly are living longer and the burden on the taxpayer is increasing. All of us feel the effects of age eventually, and it's right that the taxpayer should care for the elderly, but it also makes sense to seek to reduce the cost of medical care by reducing those ailments which are eminently preventable. Taking this argument to its logical conclusion, it is actually rather selfish to ignore overwhelming medical evidence, in the pursuit of personal gratification, and then to expect the taxpayer to foot the bill. I don't wish to pay more tax. If encouraging the populous to avoid certain very high risk activities (i.e. those which are likely to kill them slowly, painfully and therefore expensively) is going to enable all of us to enjoy a better standard (and quality) of living, then it seems to me that is to be welcomed.

Maybe you can buy into the notion that we are increasingly being beguiled into accepting the notion that, if we are abstemious and hobble on, after the pleasant terrain, up the rough moutainside, we shall reap a rich reward or gain some prize - apart from being allowed to live on yet more and more borrowed time - and become increasingly blighted and demoralized and bored. Increasingly educated about the risks? People have known for a long time that excessive smoking and drinking can shorten life. It is a balancing exercise - do I want to enjoy my life while I can or to take myself into a crippled, vegetative state and become a burden to myself and my family and society? So far as the taxpayer is concerned, it might have a duty to take care of the elderly, when they cannot take care of themselves - but quite a few of them can (financially anyway, which is your thrust). Moreover, if you take the cost of a packet of fags in the UK now (around £6-00?) - what do you think that this cost represents? Mainly tax - and if it weren't for ardent smokers dying younger, the elderly indigent amongst the abstemious might find themsleves in a real plight so far as medical and publicly-funded residential care is concerned. I am not sure that lung cancer is a slowly progressive illness - the people that I have known with it have lasted a few weeks - and how can you call smoking a 'high-risk' activity? Putting a year's income on 17 for a single spin at roulette or sky-diving are my ideas of 'high-risk' activities. Many doctors still smoke like engines and drink like fishes - because these are escapes for them from the increasingly demented demands of their hypochondriac old patients who, in the words of the song: Just Wanna Live Forever.
NJS
PS We still haven't yet had those 8 pints of Mild Ale have we?
NJS

[Jordan Marc]

Nicholas:

Ah, Tallullah Bankhead. Do you know the story about the meeting of the famous actress and one of the Marx Brothers? Tallulah had a voracious appetite for lusty men, and Chicko Marx had a similar appetite for fast women. So at a party one evening, Chicko spotted
Tallullah across the crowded room and headed straight for her. The host, knowing of Chicko's sexual conquests, stayed him a moment and
suggested he take a more subtle than usual approach to her, considering she was the daughter of a famous southern Senator. "Dats-a-no problem, boss!" said Marx. So Chicko and Tallullah were properly introduced. They stared at each other without saying anything for a moment or two. Then Chicko said: "I'd really like to fuck you!" A beat. And Tallullah, never at a loss for words, responded: "And so you shall, my dear old-fashioned boy!"

JMB

[storeynicholas]

Nicholas:

Ah, Tallullah Bankhead. Do you know the story about the meeting of the famous actress and one of the Marx Brothers? Tallulah had a voracious appetite for lusty men, and Chicko Marx had a similar appetite for fast women. So at a party one evening, Chicko spotted
Tallullah across the crowded room and headed straight for her. The host, knowing of Chicko's sexual conquests, stayed him a moment and
suggested he take a more subtle than usual approach to her, considering she was the daughter of a famous southern Senator. "Dats-a-no problem, boss!" said Marx. So Chicko and Tallullah were properly introduced. They stared at each other without saying anything for a moment or two. Then Chicko said: "I'd really like to fuck you!" A beat. And Tallullah, never at a loss for words, responded: "And so you shall, my dear old-fashioned boy!"

JMB

We seem to have shifted, somehow, from Keith Floyd to Tallulah but, if we must, my own favourite story about her is: on meeting some ex-lover, years later and again, not at a loss for words, she just said:

"I thought I told you to wait in the car!"

There is something in it all - that 'moderns' just DON'T GET.

The second favourite is - when approached by a young fan, near the end of Tallulah's life, who ventured "Are you really Tallulah Bankhead?" she replied: "What's left of her."
NJS.

[Costi]

This poor old thread started as a mere note of praise to a man who enjoyed his life

Oh, Nicholas, these guiltless "poor old threads" that you start every now and then...

...if he had drunk and smoked a bit more, he might have been carried off to peace before now...

Oh, so you are advocating a refined method of suicide. I told you, you must be in very high service!
If anyone becomes bored of life at a certain point, healthy or sick, they may take a pill of cyanide and put an end to misery, there is no need for decades of excess in drinking and smoking.
Do you think it is not possible for the abstemious (or moderate drinker) to live to be 93, happily enjoying life, like your other example, without smoking and drinking excessively?

[storeynicholas]

What me? I just think that we are increasingly encouraged to live in a state of heightened awareness of all the dangers that surround us. Originally, I am sure that human beings faced natural dangers - hunting, fighting for a mate, testing potential new foods and drinks and then, as they developed, they moved on to replace these risky necessities with dangerous sports and adventures - but now everything risky or dangerous is either discouraged or circumscribed with tough rules on safety - and so people live longer, humdrum lives until they die of boredom and incapacity. I just think that it is a pity that emphasizing the possibility of extending life until it becomes a burden leads us to exist rather than to live. I am not just saying this to be controversial - although it plainly is - but because I believe that there is some validity in this unfashionable point of view. But it goes even further: I have read of some schools dropping competitive sports' days and prize-givings because this is a way to avoid having winners and losers - the result is that even the potential for maximizing safe existence is banned. The relevance for this thread on the elegant life is that it difficult to be elegant if you are too timid and restrained in the face of all that the world has to offer.
NJS.

[couch]

In the modern age, it is fashionable to seek to extend one's days on earth to the very maximum that abstemiousness and careful living will allow. But is there any point?
. . . .

Keith Floyd knew what he was doing; so did Ian Fleming and many like them - they made free choices to trade a long sunset in life for more consolation ….dare one say, more pleasure in the middle of it. I know whose side I am on.
NJS.

Putting smoking and the nanny state aside: NJS intends, I believe, to raise a serious and worthwhile topic about philosophies of life. He opens with two anecdotes to illustrate the position best summed up by Jack London (and repeated by Ian Fleming): "The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time." A familiar rock-and-roll version of this credo was actually launched by the hoodlum character Nick (Pretty Boy) Romano (played by John Derek) in the Bogart vehicle "Knock on Any Door," who said, "I wanna live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse."

I would suppose that most members feel the appeal of, if not share, a life-practice driven by a great thirst for life and its experiences. Pursuing such a practice may indeed involve the acceptance of calculated risks of various kinds. One thinks of Sir Edmund Hillary, Sir Richard Burton, Sir Francis Chichester, Richard Halliburton--or Dr. Johnson setting out on the Dictionary, or John Harrison undertaking the development of a naval chronometer for determining longitude, in the way of more intellectual adventures. And indeed Juvenal in his great tenth satire (whence mens sana in corpore sano) in true Roman stoic style denigrates the greed for long life as he does the taste for luxury:

It is to be prayed that the mind be sound in a sound body.
Ask for a brave soul that lacks the fear of death,
which places the length of life last among nature’s blessings,
which is able to bear whatever kind of sufferings,
does not know anger, lusts for nothing and believes
the hardships and savage labors of Hercules better than
the satisfactions, feasts, and feather bed of an Eastern king.
I will reveal what you are able to give yourself;
For certain, the one footpath of a tranquil life lies through virtue. (356-64)

Yet today I'd maintain that NJS's examples, and the quotes above, offer a false dichotomy (I know, NJS, that you're dramatizing to make a case). Might it instead also be desirable or virtuous, not to live timidly merely to prolong existence, but to live actively to prolong one's span of vigorous life, and prolong the concomitant ability to drink deep of experience and contribute to the world through achievement? It's my belief that, beyond genetic factors that we as yet have little control over, the main things one can do to sustain productive and appreciative life are to be moderate in consumption (not abstemious!) and to remain both physically and intellectually active and engaged. While some fields are still a young man's game if excelling is the goal (pure maths, gymnastics), there are many in which maturity and even old age are no bar to distinction. Henry Ford was a business failure at forty and Churchill was in disgrace at 55. G.B. Shaw died at 94 from injuries sustained when he fell from a ladder while pruning a tree in his garden. I think his vegetarianism and woolen underwear had far less effect on his vigorous longevity than his insatiable desire to engage and improve the world--his work and physical activity energized him. Recent findings about brain plasticity and tissue renewal support the idea that a little effort can make a man's prime less fleeting.

I believe most philosophies of elegance involve some idea of balance or harmony, and so here: the occasional excess of work, or of indulgence, is tempered by rest and steady application. Those who elect to strive for the pinnacle of glory in physical endeavors may knowingly choose the "live fast" path, since these may require maintaining a level of conditioning or frequency of punishment that does not give the body time to repair itself and so causes long-term damage. This is not the path I'd choose for myself, but it's a noble and ancient one: the Homeric Greeks honored the display of arete (excellence) to win kleos (glory). NJS's sportsman may have chosen this path, perhaps without recognizing the cost.

But there are other kinds of excellence, and one may strive honorably for those. Handel's Messiah was premiered when he was 57, and his final masterful oratorio Jephtha when he was 67, both after he had suffered a stroke. I believe there is honor, as Juvenal suggests, in keeping fit so one may get up when knocked down by life and carry on with heart. I do not think myself unusual in having lost one field when the 1987 crash forced my museum employer to cut the position I'd moved 1500 miles to accept two years before; in having cared for and lost a much-beloved wife and intellectual companion after a ten-year struggle against a rare form of TB; in sustaining financial setbacks in economic downturns. But at 53 I published my first book, which has been nominated for prizes in two countries and reprinted in paperback this month, and today at 54 I see my best work and most elegant life still ahead of me. I intend to stay fit and sharp enough to keep calm and carry on for a good while yet.

[shredder]

It's interesting how smoking seems to be one of those rare binary issues. 5 packs of Gauloises a day or nothing?