The nanny state

JUST back from a snow-filled winter break, the first headline to grab my attention involved the hoo-ha over packed-lunch policing at a Derbyshire school. This is nothing new, surely? Schools have been thrusting the healthy eating message down our throats for years.

My lads get nothing but shredded lettuce and cucumber in their pack-ups on account of one son getting firmly reprimanded for taking in a one-inch yogurt-filled bar coated in – dare I say it – chocolate. “But, mum,” he moaned. “I know the teachers eat biscuits and chocolate in the staff room – and loads of cake.” “Of course they don’t,” I snapped. “Your teachers only ever eat gruel washed down with sugar-free vitamin juice.” And then there was the nut bar incident which still makes my stomach churn.

I accidentally sent son number one to school with a vitamin-fortified cereal bar and failed to notice it had a smattering of nuts in it. This prompted an hysterical outburst from a girl sitting next to him at the dinner table (she wasn’t allergic to peanuts, just a drama queen and a grass) and – horror of horrors – this led to a public reprimand in assembly. And don’t lecture me about nut allergies. I am, according to one relieved parent, one of the few people who ever invites her lad round. Due to his severe allergy, no one wants the responsibility.

I know all about how lethal it can be but life is filled with risks and we can’t protect ourselves from all of them, no matter how hard we try. I was reminded of this on my holiday, which was in Austria, a wealthy European neighbour with similar values to our own. Or so I thought. When I walked into my hotel, a weird smell assailed my nostrils. It was smoke from fags, cigars, those horror cancer sticks and the toxic fumes were wafting in my direction. This was a shock for my sensitive nostrils because I had forgotten what it was like. I don’t smoke and, thanks to the no smoking laws in the UK, pubs and restaurants on our side of the pond are now free of this stink.

It’s rare that I get down to a boozer but I confess that, for me, it is a much more pleasant experience without the smoke. Pre-fag ban, you’d finish a night out smelling like an ashtray from head to foot. Smokers may not be aware of this (because their noses stop registering the stench) but us goody-two-shoes non-smokers used to have to strip off the minute we walked in from a night out, toss all our clothes into the washbasket while holding our noses and then wash our hair immediately as it, too, reeked of stale fags. But suddenly, here I was, in a breathtakingly beautiful part of Austria, surrounded by snow-capped mountains, health spas and wellness clinics, and cigarettes were back on the agenda. Being a pretty right-on place, I imagined Austria would have had a smoking ban in place before the UK – but no. I looked across the lobby and not only was a woman puffing away on a cigar but she was wearing – gird your loins – a thick, real fur coat, fur trousers (I kid you not) and fur boots.

There was so much animal skin on her, I feared she’d raided a zoo. You just don’t see people in England strolling around in animal fur. Over here, she couldn’t walk down the street without being stoned by animal activists. And if she wanted a cigar she would have had to stand outside in sub-zero temperatures in the naughty smokers’ corner. It’s clear from the above that I don’t like cigarettes. Nevertheless, witnessing a more relaxed approach to life did make me question our ultra- PC, nanny nation. Fur coats in freezing ski resorts keep you warm.

Cigarettes are bad for you but you pay your money and you take your choice. As for the obesity timebomb, the pressure we’re putting on our children to eat healthily may have the opposite affect. Fed up with being told how fat, unfit and stupid, they are, by the age of 14 they’ll be gathering in parks with bagfuls of Dunkin Donuts. Instead of sneaking off for an illicit fag or bottle of cider, they’ll be smuggling chocolate cake into their hidey-holes and gorging themselves silly on Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. I was pondering all this in Austria, only to be greeted on my return by the outrage over a five-year-old boy being warned about eating chocolate spread in his sarnies. The head – and remember she’s only being ordered about by Government loonies – backed up her strict policy by mentioning that someone once brought in three Mars bar for dinner. Crazy, yes but isn’t Britain’s whole lecturing, pontificating, patronising and rule-laden climate just one screw short of nuts? I’m thinking of emigrating to Austria...