FOCUS: THE NEW DECADENCE

Wild boy Pete loves Kate. We love wild boy Pete. The more we're told to get fit, drink wisely and live safely the more we are enthralled by those who don't.

Every time we start a diet we feel hungry. Every time we go on the wagon we crave a drink. That's human nature. And every time someone in authority urges us to be good to ourselves, not least to take the pressure off doctors and the police, we long to be bad. Or applaud those who are.

"We want people to have responsible sexual relations, drinking moderately, not smoking, sufficiently exercised," said John Reid, the Health Secretary, in November.

Stuff that, said much of Britain. We know junk food hurts us but it tastes good and it's cheap. We know smoking kills, but 13 million of us still do it. We know safe sex is best, but HIV diagnoses have doubled since 1996, syphilis is up by 28 per cent, chlamydia is on the increase. Thousands of us like dogging, having sex outdoors with or watched by strangers. Even wife-swapping is back.

Jude Law, the most glamorous man in the country, did not take part in wife-swapping when he was married to Sadie Frost, as was claimed last week. He has made that clear. But the fact that someone could even falsely accuse members of the Primrose Hill set, the closest thing we have to the Hollywood A-list, without it seeming like a seedy Seventies suburban joke says everything about how the image of wife-swapping has changed. A million Britons have done it, apparently.

The new head of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Ian Blair, probably doesn't care. Not unless there is coke in the middle of the room with the car keys. Sir Ian has promised to spare officers from raiding crack dens in order to go after middle-class types who think it is "socially acceptable" to have "a wrap of charlie" with their ironic Ferrero Rocher.

But the inhabitants of big houses in Hampstead or Alderley Edge are unlikely to be worried. They know the dangers, and what the supply chain does to the people at the bottom, but they don't care. Coke makes you feel like a rebel and rebellion (however tame) makes you feel young.

That same myth explains the appeal of Pete Doherty. Feted as a genius, charged with robbery, addicted to heroin, the singer has been lauded as a hero. So why are we all still addicted to sex and drugs and rock and roll? Experts and users explain, overleaf.