Stuff the tiger – long live extinction Animals
By Jeremy Clarkson
As the population of China becomes more wealthy, demand for illegal tiger parts is booming. Up to 600m Chinese people believe that tiger bones, claws and even penises will cure any number of ailments, including arthritis and impotency. And as a result we’ve just been told, for about the hundredth time, that if nothing is done extinction looms. Well, not complete extinction. Obviously tigers will continue to exist in Las Vegas for many years to come. And in Asia there are so many backstreet big cat farms that they outnumber cows. But they will cease to exist in the wild. Right. And what are we supposed to do, exactly? Send an international force tooled up with the latest night-vision gear and helicopter gunships to hunt down and kill the poachers?
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Really? And what are these mercenaries supposed to say to the locals? “Yes, I realise that you have no fresh water, no healthcare, little food and that your ox is broken, but we are not here to do anything about that. In fact we’re going to put an end to the only industry you have.” Yes, say the conservationists, who argue that unless this is done now our children will grow up never being able to see a tiger in the wild. And that this is very sad. Is it? I have never seen a duckbilled platypus in the wild or a rattlesnake. I’ve never seen any number of creatures that I know to exist. So why should I care if my children never see a tiger? In fact, come to think of it, if they’re on a gap year trekking through the jungles of Burma I fervently hope they don’t. There’s an awful lot of sentimentality around the concept of extinction. We have a sense that when a species dies out we should all fall to our knees and spend some time wailing. But why? Apart from for a few impotent middle-class Chinamen, or if you want a nice rug, it makes not the slightest bit of difference if Johnny tiger dies out. It won’t upset our power supplies or heal the rift with Russia. It is as irrelevant as the death of a faraway star. So far this century we’ve waved goodbye to the Pyrenean ibex – did you notice? – and the mouthful that is Miss Waldron’s red colobus monkey. Undoubtedly
Health
Personal view:
So, you want to know what’s wrong with the NHS?
I
sat in the waiting room, feeling self conscious. I am usually on the other side of the door, inside the interview room. Now, I was outside, waiting. After five minutes the consultant came out; the big man, the one in charge. We were NHS. He was having trouble interviewing my mother: would I, as a psychiatrist, help him please? I went into the room. My mum was on the edge of her seat, looking towards me hopefully, giving me that look she had, assuming that everything would be all right now (because “my son” had entered the room). Trusting me. It was then that I learnt what it is like to elicit the first rank symptoms of schizophrenia from your own kith and kin, your own flesh and blood. The great man couldn’t manage it. He had the cufflinks but not the questions. He had the style but not the substance. I had the greatest pain I had ever felt in my life. A virtual knife went through 108
my chest as I asked her about the voices, about the thoughts that were not her own, about what the messengers said.
Some tests are done twice, other are not done at all I have often wondered about the doctor’s approach that day, whether he had any feeling at all for what it might have been like, to be us, to be her, to be me – because I really doubt it. I doubt it because it was all in vain. The consultation did not achieve anything. “Follow-up” did not occur; appointments were not kept; action was not taken. And when she went missing so did her notes: there was no “paper trail.” Years went by. Eventually, others would apply the Mental Health Act when the squalor became Essential Articles 11 • www.carelpress.com
too great, but only when I had complained to the chief executive of the trust. A note to the wise: complaints in psychiatry are pretty much a waste of time. To be able to proceed you need the “consent of the patient,” something of a problem if the patient is missing or does not accept that she is ill. Those who cannot do their jobs, who cannot elicit histories, are curiously diligent when it comes to applying the rules under which complaints can be made against them. They’re sticklers for protocol then. Schizophrenia gave way to Alzheimer’s disease. She came to live with me. Times are good and times are bad, and there are times when you need help. You visit the GP, talk to his shoulder, peruse the back of his skull. He sits there with his back turned, looking at his computer screen. He doesn’t touch patients; always refers. You wait and see, wait and see.
Body image
Longevity: Isn’t it time we acted our age? XII
Madonna’s genes and gym-enhanced shape are the exception, says Karen Krizanovich
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T
he trouble with longevity is how long it goes on for. Way back when we, as a societal group, died at 30, life was shorter and more compacted.
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We married at 16, had children at 17 and were toothless by 25. While there are parts of the country where this still happens, it is more common now for humans to live a protracted life, one that’s as slow as a metaphorical sloth.
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We move out of the family home to attend university, slink back to mum and dad at 30, and ponder marriage at about 40. After finding our perfect mate (online) at about the mid-40 mark, we are then heartbroken to learn that a scientist has to help us reproduce. “Honey, we’re too old to have kids!” We ask ourselves, “How did that happen? We’re so young…”
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Well, actually, you’re not – you just feel that way. With the magic bullets of superior diet, expert dermatology, increased prosperity, medical miracles and that fountain of youth called daily exercise, we’re finding ourselves with extra time on our hands. Normal mortals now verge on immortal and, not being slouches, they want to make use of every minute they’ve got. So we end up with centenarians running marathons, 60-year-olds giving birth and 80-year-old men marrying women in their twenties. Of course, Madonna, who keeps reminding us that her 50th birthday this year is a great excuse for a party,
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Britain & its citizens
THE REAL QUESTION: WHY ARE OUR CHILDREN PREPARED TO KILL ONE ANOTHER? Camila Batmanghelidjh, Founder of Kids Company
We need to ask why so many young lives are being cut short by teenagers 40
There are two rates for renting a gun on the streets of Britain. If the weapon is returned unused, it can cost £50. If it is fired, the price is £250. That is the cost of shooting someone in the world’s fourth richest country. The harrowing and sad death of Rhys Jones brought home this week the unseen and sinister infrastructure Essential Articles 11 • www.carelpress.com
for young people to use firearms that now exists in Britain’s cities. The rage, bewilderment and hatred that have followed Rhys’s murder while he walked home from playing football are understandable. Questions are being asked about whether we have a state of anarchy on our streets, whether a generation is being lost to violent lyrics,
Disability
Of course a deaf couple want a deaf child It is not as if the implantation of an embryo thought to be deaf is equivalent to mutilation Dominic Lawson
F
ew broadcasters convey astonishment with an undertone of outrage as skilfully as the BBC’s John Humphrys. Over the years the Today programme presenter has had a lot of practice. Yesterday, however, it was not an equivocating politician who got Humphrys to hit his top note. It was a bloke called Tomato – Mr Tomato Lichy, to be precise. The programme’s listeners never actually heard Mr Lichy speak: he responded
to John Humphrys’ questions in sign language, and someone else turned his answers into spoken English for the interviewer’s – and our – benefit. Tomato Lichy and his partner Paula are both deaf. They have a deaf child, Molly. Now Paula is in her 40s and the couple believe they might require IVF treatment to produce a second child. They very much want such a child also to be deaf.
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Here’s where it gets political: the Government is whipping through a new Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. Clause 14/4/9 states that, “Persons or embryos that are known to have a gene, chromosome or mitochondrion abnormality involving a significant risk that a person with the abnormality will have or develop a serious physical or mental disability, a serious illness or any other serious
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Food & drink
FEED THE WORLD Photographer Peter Menzel and his author wife Faith D’Aluisio had a simple idea – to find out more about one of our most basic and essential activities, eating. They invited themselves for dinner with families from 24 different countries
around the world. By picturing each family with a week’s worth of food shopping, they give a visual insight into the hugely varied global diet, revealing wider social, financial and health issues.
USA Weekly spend £170.71
Japan Weekly spend £158.37
Kuwait Weekly spend £110.57
India Weekly spend £19.60
The Revis family, from North Carolina, clearly enjoy the convenience of prepared and fast food. It accounts for more than a third of their budget. Fresh fruit and veg are hard to find among their purchases.
A surprising number of UK brands comprise part of the weekly diet of the Al Haggan family of Kuwait City – names such as Liptons and Vimto. Their snacks include Ritz crackers, Mars bars and Pringles.
A balanced diet of meat, fish, fruit and veg makes up the bulk of the Ukita family’s shopping in Kodaira City. Dairy products, snacks and desserts, comprising 5% of the budget, hardly feature at all.
Dairy products comprise the largest single part of the diet of the Patkar family from Ujjain in the central state of Madhya Pradesh. More than a quarter of the family’s budget goes on milk, yoghurt curds and ghee.
Britain Weekly spend £126.37 The Bainton family, from Wiltshire, have plenty of favourite British staples on display, including tomato ketchup and salad cream – but where’s the Marmite and HP sauce?
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