And while his tastes are broad, he obviously has his particular penchants Understandably, he likes art which is like adverts He also likes art which is violent, crass, yukky and pervy. He’s put the stress on youth so much that artists can feel washed up if they’re not famous by 30, and that’s absurd. But it wouldn’t have happened without him.
Of course, there’s a problem too. Saatchi’s influence on British art has been a very mixed blessing.

It wasn’t a purely Saatchi project; there were artists in the movement who were never in those shows, and vice versa. When that Nineties phenomenon finally found its coolly neutral label, it derived from the (merely descriptive) title of a series of six shows at the Saatchi Gallery. He’s built a fine gallery, the whitest walls in town, which can make even the most hopeless piece look briefly plausible. And he has half-created, and sustained, a whole art movement – and accidentally named it too

The Young British Artists, of course. He’s bought and shown (and sold again) some good art from time to time.

Justice to Saatchi. Why, for example, is hormone replacement therapy not free? It is a classic example of a “deficiency disease”.Please send questions to A Question of Health, The Independent, 1 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5DL; fax 0171-293 2182; or e-mail to health independent.co.uk Dr Kavalier cannot respond personally to questions. Asthma is not caused by a specific hormone deficiency, and people who use inhalers have to pay for their prescriptions.The rules about who receives free prescriptions are hopelessly out of date, but no one seems very keen to update them. This included any diseases caused by the human body’s inability to produce natural hormones. People with diabetes are not able to produce enough insulin, so the NHS provides it for them in the form of free prescriptions. But you can only “catch” shingles from the virus that originally caused your own attack of chickenpox.WHY ARE prescriptions free for people with diabetes, but not for those with asthma?The NHS decided years ago that it would provide free prescriptions for patients who were suffering from “deficiency diseases”. It is not possible to catch shingles from someone who has chickenpox, although it is possible to catch chickenpox from someone who has shingles.