Jeremy Clarke Jeremy Clarke

Jeremy Clarke: I’m a fake. The cannabis tells me so

Not once in the past ten years have I told the truth without calculating the capital that came with it

issue 30 November 2013

Can it be that the one single agreeable thing about getting old is that one loses one’s pot paranoia? No.

I thought I was going to get away with it, but here it came again like a creeping fog: the terrible introspection, the loss of identity, the psychic disintegration, the paranoid delusions. And here already, I noted, was the paralysing delusion that I am rooted to the spot and somehow tied to the company by a bond of loyalty, to the extent that even to uncross my legs and leave the beer-garden table would feel like a terrible betrayal. It’s horrible. I hate it.

My immediate task was to try to drink off the paranoia or the evening would be over before it started. Trev was pulling belated, nauseated faces about there being too little or no vodka in his vodka and lemonade.

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