Don’t worry — drink and be merry

Nicholas

The little "Drink Responsibly" tag line that appears on every TV advert for drink infuriates me. To a responsible person it is a superflous, patronising and irritating nonsense (nannysense?). To the irresponsible it won't make a bit of difference. So what is it for?

It is there to "send a message". A typical, priggish, patronising, puitan, "that's all right then", "something must be done", infantilising, essentially Leftist wimmen message of the sort we are so inundated and vexed by. The frowning, concerned, oh-so-earnest disapproval of arch-Nannies Yvette Cooper and Dawn Primarollo summed up in two verbs.

Whenever I see those two prim little verbs I think "Bollocks".

First cigarettes, now alcohol. The habitual banners, nose-pokers and do-good, bleeding-heart bleeders won't leave us alone. What's next - meat?

John David Barnett

Hoilday season? I thought it was Christmas.

Roman Kirillov

The biggest problem with all these campaigns against drinking and smoking is â” if you're drinking (or, say, smoking) socially, say, on Fridays or may be couple of times a week, without getting plastered (smoking 2 boxes a day), then it hardly will do any harm to you â” thus these campaigns are largely irrelevant (read: wasting taxpayers moneys). On the other hand, if you're heavy-drinker (heavy-smoker) these ads are still irrelevant because they will unlikely change your habits. So what's the point?

Cuffleyburgers

The other problem facing rural pubs is of course the hoo ha about drink driving, which is mostly exaggerated.

Yam Yam

The best way to 'moderate' drinking is to revive the traditional British pub. This means:-

1) Freeze or reduce duty on draft beers and whack it up on canned beer sold in supermarkets instead.

2) Get rid of heaving, standee bars and ensure your clientele can all sit down instead. This reduces the potential for shoving (and hence fighting).

3) Get rid of the loud music so that your patrons can engage in conversation once more. Furthermore, turn the huge Sky Sports TV off unless it is conveying a sporting contest of truly national importance. These measures will hopefully encourage a wider age spread of patrons back into our pubs once more (whereby the older age group have always largely acted as a brake on the riotous and immature behaviour of the youngsters).

3) Instruct the police and the courts to come down heavily upon drunk and disorderly behaviour. Likewise, hospital casualty units should not be treating drunks until they have sobered up (preferably in a police cell).

Behaviour in traditional pubs was largely self-regulating, with drunkenness for the most part being frowned upon. However, far too many town centres nowadays are the preserve of uncouth young drinkers, for whom the sole objective is to get as blotto as possible as fast as possible. Not conductive for good health and certainly not conducive for cutting alcohol-related crime.

The only bright spot is that, with evening television viewing as dire as it's ever been, at least the broadcasting authorities appear to be doing their bit to save the trdaitional British pub from extinction!

FatDuck

"Guidelines on unit measurements ... vary widely from country to country." What is the recommended number of units per week in the more generous countries? I thought this info would be easily available, but it's harder to find than you'd think.