I had just got in from dinner with Chris Huhne tonight, and settled down to write about it, and one of those college rites of passage teen angst films came on called "The Rules of Attraction". I have never seen it, and still haven't really, because just as they got to a bit about a frat brother, or whatever it is they call them, being so drunk he had all his friends worried he might have taken something else, or that he might not make it through the night because he wouldn't wake up, a girl from the flat upstairs called down to say that they were worried about their flatmate who had been out with the hockey team initiation pub-crawl and was semi-conscious in the flat.

An hour or so and an ambulance visit later (I always feel a bit iffy about calling out an ambulance for what is so obviously alcohol related but decided not to risk the alternatives since last time I tried to call the on call night doctor service by the time they had phoned me back to say call an ambulance in a previous incident the person had stopped breathing and was pretty close to death from a sub-arachnoid haaemorrage) up come the credits at the end of the film...

"Any similarity to actual learning establishments, students or situations is entirely coincidental"

I don't think I believe in coincidences! But I do believe that alcohol is one of the most deadly, frequently abused and much underestimated drugs. The effects can be hideous and frightening to onlookers. And I have no doubt at all that if he had strayed onto some of the more popular illicit substances, in an ideal world of freedom of choice with regulation on the basis of minimising harm and informing that choice, he would not be in anything like the state he is currently in.

But at least he's in bed, and with someone to watch him for a couple of hours. And I earnestly hope that nobody suffered a heart attack and died waiting for the two ambulances that had to come to deal with two separate incidents of alcohol madness onsite tonight in the space of quarter of an hour.

UPDATE: At least the chap in my block was accompanied home by his female flatmate (who had been called and asked to collect him by his male drinking buddies so far as I can work out!) and had someone to look after him. I now gather that in the other incident the person, who was not even a resident of ours but from that other ramshackle place in town that prides itself on big brains addled with cheap booze from outlets called "JCRs", was simply rolled into what passed for a "recovery position" and left in the quad, unconscious. The ambulance took him away.