French Revolutions

HGH goes, I
need only point out that side effects include excessive growth of bones in the
hands, feet and face, and that I just typed that sentence with my nose and
chin.
    It took a bit of homework to find my
drug of choice, one that married a subtle psychological boost to a
physiologically galvanising punt up the arse. Ephedrine has been around since
ancient China, a herbal infusion that increased heart rate and therefore
stamina. It was first synthesised in the Twenties, becoming popular as a
treatment for asthma and hay fever, a drug that broadened the airways and so
enhanced oxygen intake. These factors, coupled with the increased heart rate
and stimulated release of pain-blocking neurotransmitters, inevitably — though
rather belatedly — attracted sportsmen. By the Seventies it was a popular — and
illegal — pick-me-up; when Maradona was thrown out of the 1994 World Cup,
ephedrine was the drug he tested positive for (though not the one, I hoped,
that inspired the now-notorious display of camera-eating mania).
    Ephedrine; hay fever pills. It
sounded good — innocuous yet effective. I can’t remember where I copied the
following quote from, but as my preparatory training petered forlornly away it
had developed into a mantra: ‘It is the unrealistic pressure to perform day
after day that lies at the heart of the drugs issue, which is not an excuse for
it, just an explanation of why it might happen.’ It would happen. And here I
was, striding up to the pharmacy counter of Sainsbury’s to make it happen.
    ‘Hay fever,’ I said to the
white-coated young chemist, following it with a sniff whose alarmingly
theatrical quality caused her to look sharply up from her prescriptions.
‘Drug-pills... remedies. Remedies for my hay fever.’
    It was a bad start. She eyed me
keenly, then glanced behind her at the relevant products. ‘Which do you
normally use?’
    I’d been prepared for this. ‘Over the
years? The lot.’ Then I gave a world-weary, guttural sigh intended to summarise
a life blighted by flora-related nasal congestion.
    She started to read out names from
the shelf and I followed her sequence. ‘Clarityn? Beconase? Piriton...?’
    ‘Yep.’ Feeling the need to drum up
some authenticity, I carried on with the next product along. ‘And Acumed.’
    She swivelled. ‘That’s a pain-relief
patch for rheumatic conditions.’
    ‘No wonder it didn’t work!’
    Unwilling to brave the cold-eyed
inquisitors of Boots — I once went in to buy some Calpol for my son’s flu and
came out redfaced and empty-handed, feeling like a thwarted solvent-abuser —
I’d hoped a supermarket chemist would be a pushover. The wrongheadedness of
this assumption was now apparent, and with a queue building up behind me I cut
to the quick. Slowly.
    ‘The doctor recommended ones with
effer... effer-something,’ I announced with demonstrably counterfeit vagueness.
‘Ephedrine?’ she replied carefully.
    ‘...Yeah. That’s the stuff.’
    ‘And who is your doctor?’
    Oh dear. There was some muttering
from behind. ‘I didn’t say my doctor. I said the doctor. A doctor. My wife’s father. Sort of like a doctor-in-law.’
    Look, I felt like saying, I don’t
want to sell this to kids out of an ice-cream van or slip it in policewomen’s
drinks. I just want to cycle up some hills feeling better in myself.
    ‘Are you allergic to hydroxybenzoic
acid?’
    ‘I wouldn’t have thought so.’
    ‘Any history of high-blood pressure?’
    A confident shake of the head. This
was getting better; I was going to get my drugs.
    She raised her voice very slightly.
‘Are you taking hypnotics or medication for depression?’
    ‘Not yet.’
    Tuts from the rear; tetchy
superciliousness from ahead. The chemist turned, plucked at the shelf and
reluctantly slid a packet of Haymine across the counter like a suspicious
bookmaker handing over winnings.
    I palmed them, smiled, then piped up,
‘Oh yeah — and three packets of ProPlus.’
    I’d actually dabbled with Haymine up
the Aubisque, but with the panniers on, half a tab hadn’t made any perceivable
difference. This time it would be more systematic. (ProPlus, for anyone without
experience of student last-minute revision practices, is a caffeine tablet with
the lusty kick of a treble espresso.) I’d fumbled one Haymine tab into my
sweat-mired gob halfway up that first col; just beyond Bédoin, when my speed
slowed to single-digit kilometres an hour and the suddenly monstrous peak