Wake me up before you show blow

It's not often Melvyn Bragg's works get The Sun excited, but the forthcoming interview with George Michael for the South Bank Show has sent the Wapping paper into one of its spray-can froths of frenzy. During the course of the backstage chat, Michael takes a couple of puffs on a spliff. Societal meltdown is predicted:

GEORGE Michael will spark outrage when he is seen smoking cannabis in a TV interview.

Will he? Who from? It's not like Michael's made any secret of his drug use; it's not like the programme is on before the watershed; it's not like any adult in Britain would never have seen someone smoking a spliff; it's not even like Michael's slightly shambolic life is going to be a good advert for smoking dope. So who, exactly, is going to be outraged?

Michael even stresses that the drug is bad for you, mmkay:

“It’s the only drug I’ve ever thought worth taking. But it’s not very healthy.

“I think my life might be somewhere else if I’d chosen another avenue.

“Alcohol for instance — if I drank as much as I smoked, my God, I’d be just like Keith Richards.”

If you smoked as much as Keith Richards drank, young man, you'd be unable to move.

music melvyn bragg george michael