Second opinion | 18 June 2005

I went to a different prison last week, in an ancient market town, to see a man about an arson. He had set fire to a house with four of his friends — or should I say former friends (his subsequent apologies not having been accepted by them) — in it. He said that he had been under a lot of pressure lately, ever since he had discovered that his ex, the mother of his two children, was injecting herself with heroin in front of them. So was their latest stepfather, her current boyfriend.

‘What has that to do with setting fire to the house?’ I asked.

He answered much as Mr Blair, or any other politician, might have answered in the circumstances.

‘I’ve never done it before,’ he said. ‘I don’t get no buzz off of starting fires. It was a one-off.’

These days, I grow impatient when people don’t answer the question. I asked it again.

‘I’d turned to drink,’ he said. ‘It’d been a heavy day, a bottle of brandy on top of ten lagers.’

‘So you were drunk?’

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‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But not out of my head with it. Since I’ve been in prison, I’ve done an Alcohol Awareness Course.’

As far as I can make out, Alcohol Awareness Courses teach people that drinking alcohol can make you drunk.

‘You went to your friends’ house when you were drunk?’ I asked.

‘It wasn’t their house exactly,’ he said.

‘Whose house was it, then?’

‘They’re all registered alcoholics, like. It was a squat.’

‘Why did you go there?’

‘I wanted to find out why they beat me up last week.’

Round here, of course, they don’t need a reason to beat you up, but perhaps it’s different in ancient market towns.