It is a media tradition, indeed a journalistic necessity, to accompany scare stories about health issues with harrowing examples of people whose lives had been ruined by indulging in the unhealthy habit being described. Yesterday, the middle class was particularly singled out for a warning against "hazardous" drinking. This, it turns out, is the stage you go through before getting on to "harmful" drinking, which is what the bingers do. On the Today programme, Professor Mark Bellis, the chap in charge of the research commissioned by the Department of Health, explained that "hazardous" drinking, for men, started at two bottles of wine a week - which is less than two ordinary glasses a day. For women, it's a bottle and a half a week.
I just don't believe that such amounts can be a realistic threat to health, so I looked in the papers for the customary human-interest story that is the warning to us all. ("I drank two glasses of wine a day and look at the wreck I've become," etc.) I found none. Because, I suspect, there weren't any. I studied the examples given of nasty medical things that could happen, but they all seemed to relate to the risks of much heavier drinking. So was there any basis for the health warnings to the middle classes?
Bellis offered one; in effect, that a glass or two of wine a day could gradually turn into a daily bottle, which was too much. Yes, and the eater of one pizza a week may graduate to one a day. That is not an argument. I'm in favour of campaigns aimed at curbing the excessive consumption of alcohol, which encourages drinkers to violence and dangerous driving, as well as making them ill. What I'm against is scare-mongering based on exaggeration. The government must not cry wolf about people's health. They run the risk of being disbelieved when they issue a warning on something that really does matter.
· I've been touched by the passionate interest G2 readers have shown in my rugby-allegiance dilemma. There has even been some betting on the result, though I wasn't allowed to take part, on the spurious grounds that I had inside knowledge of my own mind. If only. I received a great deal of advice on what tests and criteria to apply to ascertain whether I was French or English. Suggestions included basing my decision on various irrelevant contests - which national anthem I liked better (I know no Englishman who prefers God Save the Queen, so that's not much of a test), frogs' legs versus fish and chips (few Frenchmen actually like grenouilles), and whether I found Cécilia Sarkozy more attractive than Mrs Brown (not a tough call for me).
So there I was last Saturday, in the cafe of my Provençal village (unfair, said some; I should have been in a neutral venue) waiting for the teams to come out of the tunnel and for the divine thunderbolt that would reveal my emotional national identity. It didn't arrive. Instead, England scored a lovely early try, which I much enjoyed, and I nearly threw my arms up in acclaim until I remembered where I was. Oh dear, I thought, I'm going down the road that leads to that most desperate of outcomes - supporting whichever team was playing the more attractive game. If anyone had asked me which side I was on at that point, I would have been in danger of answering, "I'm on the side of good rugby. May the best team win." Hopeless.
Even worse, I had fleeting moments of supporting the team and country I felt most sorry for - first England the underdogs then, egged on by the woman I married recently, France, because Sarkozy needed cheering up after losing his wife.
OK, I'll get to the point. After a while, I knew I wanted France to win, and I knew it wasn't just to do with the game I was watching. So I got my answer. But something still niggles. I didn't feel the deep passion that I had hoped would emerge. I was sad that France lost, but if I was truly, wholly French, I would have felt sadder. I felt French, but not in a combative, my-country-right-or-wrong, let's-beat-the-hell-out-of-the-English sort of way.
PS It had been brought to my attention that I also lived in South Africa for many years. It was there I saw my first ever rugby match, and played the sport, if badly and briefly. So how will I feel on Saturday when ... Oh, forget it. I've enough allegiance problems. Allez les Blancs.
· Look at it this way. If Al Gore hadn't conducted such an insipid presidential campaign in 2000, and in particular if he hadn't taken the disastrous decision to reject Bill Clinton's offer of help, he would have won Florida. There would have been no controversy about hanging chads, no need for a supreme court vote. Gore would have become president. Many awful things that have happened under Bush would not have happened. Gore would certainly not have taken the US into an illegal invasion of Iraq. In other words, the catastrophe that is Iraq today can be traced back directly to Gore's bad judgment and general inadequacies. I don't doubt his integrity or his good intentions, but I'm finding it a little odd that someone whose conduct resulted in a terrible war is being rewarded with a prize for peace.
· This week Marcel read Everyman, Philip Roth's "gripping novella, an exquisite tribute to the inevitability of death and the cruel, random unfairness of life". Marcel saw Macbeth, at the Gielgud: "Visually stunning, terrific witches, Patrick Stewart and Kate Fleetwood commanding as the murderous twosome, but the play's updating to the Stalinist era is questionable."