Who'd have thought that Francis Maude and Brian Sewell would be the new Noel and Liam Gallagher? What a contrast their candour about drugs makes when compared to the hypocrisy and paranoia on display at the National Television Awards party.

The ladies toilets at the plush reception held more white powder than in Lapland at Christmas, but instead of enjoying their excesses, the young soap stars spent the evening acting "straight" in case Greg Dyke wanted a chat. Around 11pm, my younger sister laughingly pointed to a teenager, being studiously ignored by the TV executives around him. In his jeans and trainers, he looked like an extra from The Bill and he was yelling into his mobile, "Get here . . . everyone wants some, bring loads . . . "

I came close to stumbling into the marijuana minefield during a debate show on Radio 5 Live when all the guests were asked if they had ever inhaled. As my mind desperately listed the favourite non-denials, Christian Wolmar, a professorial parent in glasses, had a moment of epiphany on air. He blurted, "Yes, I have smoked cannabis. I like it and still do. I smoke it now, two or three times a week."

I'm beginning to think that an old-fashioned family life in the suburbs or the countryside among ageing professionals may not be so dull after all.

Take the 50th birthday party my partner and I patronisingly attended recently. It was held on my friend's smallholding in the middle of the Shropshire countryside. We predicted a quiet gathering followed by fireworks and mulled wine. At first, everything was very Archers. Rosy-cheeked children in wellies chased dogs through the various barns while parents chatted about soil erosion and market day over glasses of homemade wine. I went up the oaken, rickety stairs to the bathroom and, yes, the toilet paper really was shyly hidden in the skirts of a knitted dolly.

But after 11pm things got twisted. Paul and Steven, the white-haired hosts, offered us hallucinogenic mushrooms - "don't chew them", they warned me. These took hold about half an hour later, just as their older kids and grandchildren arrived to DJ until dawn. The weed was all home-grown and the only habit that was frowned upon was the smoking of brand-name fags.

I was stunned again a few days later over a dinner table in a Parisian suburb. It had been a very traditional dinner - lots of wine, heavy, delicious food - with the large family animatedly discussing philosophy and politics. The gruff patriarch (an ex-union boss) told me that "England and France should unite to fend off our common enemies" (namely the rest of Europe).

After dinner, the eldest son, a writer, rolled a spliff at the table. He was allowed only two puffs on the joint before the elderly grandmother took it from him and jammed it between her shrivelled lips. Then she burst into a never-ending song written around the time of the French revolution that, much to everyone's amusement, included the words "merde" and "Angleterre" in the chorus.

Three generations of one family all laughing and singing together. When was the last time that happened to most of us?

In north London, you have your first spliff at 13 on your way to school assembly, but then spend the rest of your adult life sucking mints, spraying air freshener and bored out of your skull when relatives come to visit. Family values, the "traditional" way? Yes please.

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