I've Been Kicked Out Of The Club

I'M FED UP WITH THE MEDIA CANT. WHY CAN'T EVERYONE JUST COME CLEAN ABOUT
COCAINE?

Well, the verdict is in. The Supreme Court of the London Media, otherwise
know as the Directors of the Groucho Club, met last week to consider my
case and quickly reached a unanimous decision. They've elected to throw me
out. The remainder of my annual subscription will be refunded. I am the
weakest link. Goodbye.

My crime was to write about a cocaine-taking incident that occurred during
a photo shoot for Vanity Fair's 'Cool Britannia' issue at the club. I was
the editor in charge and in my recently published book I reveal that Damien
Hirst and Keith Allen, the photo's two subjects, demanded I supply them
with alcohol and cocaine as a condition of posing for the camera.

Needless to say, things soon got out of hand and I felt like a supply
teacher presiding over a group of naughty schoolchildren. I didn't help
matters by dipping into the Bolivian marching powder myself. It was like an
X-rated episode of Men Behaving Badly . I didn't think the Groucho would
mind if I wrote about this. After all, it's hardly a state secret that
people occasionally take cocaine in the club.

On the contrary, it's world famous for it. If Osama bin Laden sent a
suspicious-looking envelope full of white powder to 45 Dean Street it would
be up someone's nose in 30 seconds. The incident in question occurred five
years ago and Hirst and Allen have never made any bones about their love of
illegal substances.

Indeed, Hirst talks openly about his cocaine-fuelled nights at the Groucho
in On the Way to Work, a recently published collection of interviews with
the artist. Far from damaging their reputations, I would have done Hirst
and Allen far more harm if I'd revealed that they were clean-living family men.

However, I didn't reckon on Matthew Freud, the PR guru who made a
successful takeover bid for the club earlier this year. According to a
source at the club, Matthew was absolutely determined to throw me out and
no one was prepared to stand up to him. His unforgiving attitude may be
because he was arrested for possession of cocaine when he was 17 and wants
to send a message to his business partners that he's now squeaky clean.

His PR company, Freuds, numbers several big American corporations among its
clients and Matthew may have wanted to reassure them that he's not going to
be soft on drugs in his newly acquired club. Another possibility is that
he's settling an old score. I've taken a number of pot shots at the oily PR
man over the years, including a very irreverent piece about his recent
wedding to Rupert Murdoch's daughter.

I once had the pleasure of attending a society wedding with Freud and wrote
about how he'd swapped place settings with another young man so he could
sit next to Helena Bonham Carter. The groom's mother, who'd specifically
requested to sit next to him, was outraged, but it was all water off the
duck's back to the diminutive social climber.

Whatever the explanation, Freud's response to my book has come as a shock
to the club's previous owners. Apparently, they think he's completely
overreacted. 'He should have just ignored the whole thing,' one confided to
me last week. 'Under the old regime no one would have given a damn.'

So is this the end of louche behaviour at the media's favourite watering
hole? I very much doubt it. Matthew Freud's a little like Claude Rains in
Casablanca announcing that he was shocked - shocked! - to discover that
there was gambling going on in Humphrey Bogart's club. Now that all the
usual suspects have been rounded up - that is, me - it will be business as
usual in the Groucho Club loos.

There's an enormous amount of hypocrisy in the media about drug use. Last
week, Scotland Yard announced a crackdown on middle-class cocaine users
and, as the only journalist willing to talk openly about it, I've been
fending off interview requests from radio and television stations ever since.

On Friday I appeared on the BBC to discuss the latest Home Office
statistics about cocaine-related deaths and almost gave the producer a
heart attack when, just before going on, I revealed that I'd brought along
my forensic testing kit. Would she object if I gave the lavatory a quick
going over? She giggled nervously when I told her I was only joking.

Whenever I appear on one of these live programmes the presenters nearly
always try to ambush me by asking whether I'm still a cocaine user. They
assume their sternest expressions, ready to frown with displeasure as soon
as I confess. I usually mumble something about taking it 'occasionally' at
parties, but the next time I'm asked this question I'm going to pause for a
few seconds and then say, 'Why? Have you got any?' That should shut them up.

Let's face it, I'm not the only one getting up to mischief. The Evening
Standard conducted an investigation into drug use in the capital's top
night spots recently and discovered that, in the words of the poem by
Murray Lachlan Young, 'Simply everyone's taking cocaine'. Forensic testing
in London's smartest establishments revealed that nose candy was being
inhaled in the Savoy, the Ritz and the Royal Opera House. No wonder
Britannia's cool again.

The entire country's blanketed in a blizzard of white powder. I suppose I
shouldn't be too blase about the long-term effects of cocaine. The day
after the Vanity Fair photo shoot, I awoke at noon to discover that half my
face was paralysed. Could it be related to the vast quantities of Bolivian
marching powder I'd consumed the night before?

This was no ordinary case of 'showbiz flu'. I took myself off to the local
Accident and Emergency Department where I was told by a doctor that I was
suffering from a harmless condition know as Bell's Palsy. It would clear up
in a matter of days. 'Are you sure it's not related to cocaine?' I asked,
anxiously. 'Why?' he replied. 'Have you got any?'