Merci Macron, all is forgiven! It’s time we put a stop to Dry January

Hurrah for the French. Yes, you heard me. Its sane and civilised government has repelled the terrible Anglo-saxon innovation that is Dry January. No fewer than 45 academics specialising in addiction studies – and what a weird specialisation that is – wrote to the health minister to urge that the government back an alcohol-free January, adding that it was “more than a shame” that it hasn’t, but ministers, including the president, sensibly ignored them.

Good for them. France’s drinking habits may have become more British, viz. more yobbish, in recent decades, but the drinking culture there is still based on the assumption that a glass of wine when you eat is normal … nothing special. And that, in a country whose every region gives a name to a wine or a cheese, is right. The wine producers body, Vin et Société, says that 90 per cent of French people drank less than 10 glasses of wine a week, pretty well the opposite of the binge. As for the president, Emmanuel Macron, he summed up the general sentiment when he observed that a meal without wine “is a bit sad”.

Here the terrible Dry January thing is a decade old. Every year I point out that besides being a bore, it’s awful for one simple reason: this is not the month to give things up. Look outside… go outside. What is it about the weather that makes you think that this is just the time to eschew a cheering beer in a pub, a nice port or a hot whiskey? It’s only dreary, Godless puritans who could possibly identify New Year’s Day as the time to start abstinence from drink. And while we’re on that subject, can we remember that we’re in the middle of the Twelve Days of Christmas – the time when we should be celebrating? And that goes on until January 6, the Epiphany, and for the hardcore, myself included, until Candlemas on February 2.

If you want to give things up, do it at the right time: Lent. It’s early this year, but mid-february to the end of March is still a better time for abstinence than now. Meanwhile… your good health! Santé!

Well, that’s me done for. It seems that such is the admiration of some right-wing politicians for The Lord of the Rings, it has been placed on the list of books that the Prevent counter-terrorism people use to identify problematic suspects. Georgia Meloni, the Italian PM, is a Tolkien fan, but it seems a bit rude to put the head of government of a friendly ally on the same level as, say, Isis terrorists.

Obviously, it’s nuts. Look up Tolkien’s rude letter to a German publisher who asked for his Aryan credentials in 1938 before it would publish his work. He wrote: “I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-iranian; as far as I am aware, none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people.”

Tolkien inhabited the world of Norse myth, but that’s not problematic in itself; nor is the fact that elves are fair while orcs are dark. It’s time to reclaim him as a simple storyteller. Meanwhile, if the Prevent people are reading this, can I just make clear that my own preference is for The Hobbit?

If I’m alert today, it may be that I abandoned the pretence that I enjoy staying up late on New Year’s Eve. And wonderfully, a friend feels the same way, so she comes round for dinner at 7.30pm and leaves for home by 10pm. You know, it’s fine to see in the new year the next morning.