A Cornish newspaper that is struggling to arrest rapidly declining sales devoted acres of space last week to an investigation into cocaine use in the county.
An unlucky reporter was sent to scour public lavatories for evidence of the drug and, surprise, surprise, he found traces of it almost everywhere he went.
Packet readers will, of course, not be surprised by this revelation. We have been reporting widespread local drug abuse for years and have even published photographs of hypodermic needles left in public places by addicts.
Drug abuse is, in fact, so widespread that the back room in one popular Cornish night club is known as Boots by many of the regulars.
I suppose the only surprise to me about the newspaper’s investigation was that traces of cocaine were found in the loos at Marks and Spencer and the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth.
I’ve always thought of M&S customers as little old ladies with blue rinsed hair who shop for new knickers but I suppose I’m a little behind the times. The store has, after all, had an expensive marketing makeover in recent years and obviously now attracts a different kind of clientele. As for the maritime museum ... well, what can I say? Men in anoraks snorting coke? Whatever next!
Oh yes, there was one other surprise: the fact that traces of cocaine were found on toilet seats, implying that users kneel on grubby floors and sniff the drug from a place close to where another person has been evacuating his bowels.
Now this is depravity! Drug abuse is bad enough but the lack of personal hygiene is truly disgusting.

*****

I look forward to requesting copies of the phone bill for County Hall for the week leading up to December 12.
I suspect that call charges will be at a record high and that 0870 2424601 will be revealed as a much-used number.
This is the number adopted by the Big Lottery Fund to record support for the Eden Project’s bid for a £50 million handout. Calls to the number cost 10p a minute from a BT landline and even higher from a mobile.
The reason I suspect to find the number showing repeatedly on County Hall’s next phone bill is that all staff were encouraged to ring it.
I have been sent a copy of an internal e-mail circulated to staff which says: “Dear colleague. The phone lines are now open! Eden’s next great phase, the Edge, is one of four finalists for the biggest prize in TV history, the Big Lottery Fund’s ‘The People’s £50 million contest,’ being decided by a public vote this weekend. You can vote now by phone for the Edge in the People’s £50m contest. Call 0870 2424601 ....”
Apart from the cost to the taxpayer, doesn’t this smack a little of vote rigging? The idea was surely that the public should be asked to give their unbiased view on where the cash should go? I’m sure it was never intended or imagined that a local authority would use its might to drum up support at public expense.
I don’t know how many telephones there are at County Hall, but it probably runs into thousands. Multiply that by 10p a time and this was no doubt a costly exercise.
As you might expect from a County Hall exercise, the plan went pear shaped: the money was won by an up-country project!