Saturday, January 30, 2010

Speak up for drinkers!

I recently looked at why CAMRA remained so puzzlingly silent in the face of the current tidal wave of anti-drink sentiment, and set up a poll asking “Should CAMRA do more to fight the rise of neo-Prohibitionism?”

There were 74 responses – I think the highest for any poll apart from the smoking ban one – and the results were:

Yes, it should speak out: 56 (76%)
No, we have alcohol problems that need to be addressed: 1 (1%)
No, it should adopt a narrower, non-political role: 1 (1%)
It’s a waste of space anyway: 16 (22%)

That must be one of the most conclusive results in any poll I have ever run. More than three-quarters of people took the view it should speak out more, while only one went for Option 2 which is closest to the current view of the leadership, and likewise only one selected Option 3 which at least, as I said in a comment, has the benefit of intellectual coherence.

I assume most of those who answered “It’s a waste of space anyway” are people who believe that neo-Prohibitionism should be resisted, but CAMRA has been so compromised by its equivocation on this issue as to be incapable of mounting any successful challenge.

So a very clear signal there, but don’t hold your breath for any change of course.

While CAMRA remains wedded to the ideas the a minimum alcohol price that raises the typical price of off-trade drinks will benefit the pub trade (which it won’t) and that most consumption of off-trade alcohol is inherently irresponsible (which it isn’t) then don’t expect any change from the current sleepwalk into prohibition.

First, they came for the cheap lager drinkers, but I never drank cheap lager, so I wasn’t concerned…

The real age drinking starts

Another excellent opinion piece from Tim Martin of Wetherspoons, pointing out the hypocrisy of those in authority acknowledging that going to pubs before the age of 18 had actually helped their socialisation and transition to adulthood, but now doing their level best to ensure that today’s youngsters can’t do the same. This really is a classic example of a policy intended to solve a problem actually making matters worse.

Government ministers, like policemen, judges and everyone else used pubs before 18; they know and permit their children to use pubs before 18 like the rest of us, because they generally prefer the supervised environment, yet their entire policy is based on persecuting pubs for what they themselves did, and for what they condone today on a personal level.
It’s a great pity more industry leaders aren’t prepared to speak out in the way that Tim Martin often does.

Friday, January 29, 2010

The war on drink

Like most of us, I first encountered Pete Brown through his books about beer, which are at the same time informative and highly amusing. He has always struck me as someone who would be excellent company for a night in the pub. But recently my admiration for him has further increased due the outspoken stance he has adopted in combating the tide of neo-Prohibitionism.

He put an excellent series of in-depth articles on his blog comprehensively debunking the anti-drink claims of the House of Commons Select Committee, and now he has penned a trenchant article for The Publican: Make no mistake, this is a war on drink. We need to fight back. He concludes:

Make no mistake – this is a war on drink. The issue has been described as a ‘battleground’ for the general election. The problem with that description is that all main political parties are on the same side, competing over who can look toughest.

Their enemy is you and me. The battle plan is to make drinking socially unacceptable, to create an appetite that will support far more draconian measures than those currently being proposed. That’s how the smoking ban worked. It took 40 years – with drink, it’s happening much quicker.

We need to fight back. Together. And there’s no time to waste.
There’s someone who gets it. What a pity that the major organisation supposedly representing drinkers’ interests doesn’t.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

HIGHWAY ROBBERY AT TAXI FIRM




The anti-smoking law is proving to be a nice little earner for the Treasury with various fines and penalties imposed since it's introduction more than two years ago but this week saw the first in one Lincolnshire district.

A taxi firm owner in Sleaford and North Hykeham was fined for "letting" a woman smoke in his own office. The report in today's Lincolnshire Echo has a quote from yours truly who, I'm pleased to say, was asked for a response to this case by the reporter Philippa Stewart. I reckon it is still quite one-sided but at least there is, this time, a touch of balance.

I was also encouraged to see that I'm not the only one who feels that Lincoln deserves better than St Gillian of Merron as an MP - as you can read below from a cutting taken from the Echo's letter page. Not related to the piece, but I've also included the Echo's Quotes of the Day, which I felt were quite appropriate.

Further in the paper, not copied here, is a report on a smoker of 25 years who is quitting with the pharmaceutical aid Champix. I wonder if he knows of the major health risks asociated with that particular drug?


Wednesday, January 27, 2010

The answer to everything - ban it!


After the recent furore, it was no surprise that someone should come out and say that Buckfast Tonic Wine should be banned entirely. Not just in Scotland, but across the whole of Europe. And equally no surprise that the person calling for the ban was a female Labour MEP, Catherine Stihler, who no doubt comes out of the same mould of Righteous harpies as Hairy Moneyball, whom Dick Puddlecote takes great delight in baiting.
A Scots Labour MEP yesterday called for a Europe-wide ban on Buckfast. Catherine Stihler urged a powerful European Parliament committee to impose an all-out ban on alcoholic drinks which also include caffeine. The move follows growing concern over Buckfast tonic wine. The drink is 15 per cent alcohol and contains as much caffeine as eight cans of cola in a standard bottle. Buckfast's distributors insist the product has become a scapegoat for anti-social behaviour.
I’m sure all the old biddies who drop in to Buckfast Abbey in pastoral Devon for the occasional bottle of their favourite pick-me-up would be very disappointed to find it no longer available. And, even if we accept the proposition that a combination of alcohol and caffeine turns people into raging madmen, who’s to say you can’t get the same effect from a vodka Red Bull? Or, for that matter, an Irish coffee? And would they have to ban Bailey’s as well?

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Majority, what majority?

It’s often claimed by supporters of the smoking ban in pubs that it is supported by a majority of the population. Sometimes it’s claimed that it enjoys the support of a large majority, or even overwhelming support.

But, as Simon Clark points out, that just ain’t so. The latest edition of the annual British Social Attitudes survey says:

In Britain as a whole, the majority support a smoking ban, with just seven per cent saying that smoking should be freely allowed. However, the level of restriction, whether a complete ban or simply restricted to certain areas, divides the public.

While just under half (46 per cent) support a ban on smoking in pubs and bars altogether, a similar proportion (41 per cent) prefer limiting smoking to certain areas of pubs and bars.
In fact, this survey – which, as it is carried out by the government and thus can’t be accused of having an anti-ban axe to grind – has never shown a majority of people to be in favour of a blanket smoking ban in pubs and bars, which suggests that they do not regard them as genuinely public areas but rather part of the licensee’s space where they are allowed in as guests.

VOTE FOR DAVE AND GET GORDY.


The Tory liars are already at it as this link below shows ... and it is written by a Tory who has everything to gain by scaring the hell out of traditional voting Tories.

It seems to me that if all the Tories and the disaffected Labourites voted UKIP, then we would finally be free of the awful three party alliance that denies freedom of choice and inflicts unwanted policies on the poor conned souls of Britain.

Vote Dave and get Gordy. It's that simple as Dave and Gordy are one and the same.

The ONLY choice this election if you truly value freedom, and the right to have some say over how your country is managed, is UKIP.

LABOUR BETRAYED THE POOR




Tony Blair said Labour would be judged on how it dealt with the poorest people in British society and it's record shows that it robbed them, and conned them in exactly the way it has conned everyone in this country so that Blair and his favourties could stuff their own pockets with money - tons of it.

This report on last night's Newsnight http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/8480636.stm on the redevelopment - or regeneration to use Blair's newspeak - in Salford and Ordsall, reveals that Labour robbed the poor to pay the rich. They stole the working classes houses, their heritage, their history, and gave them to the highest bidding developers, and then shoved decent hard working people into crap tenements, or new houses which they make them pay through the nose for.

This party has crapped on its core support. I hope these honourable working class people get ther revenge at the next election but it will be no good looking to the Tories or the illiberal demotwats to put things right. These two parties also have their own interests at heart.

The most gut-wrenchingly sickening thing about this report is the salesman's con given by none other than the cheating munchkin herself - Hazel Blears.

In short, Blair, you ripped us off, you excluded us, you priced us out of education, and if hanging is ever brought back to this country, the first on the gallows should be Bliar and all of his favourite ministers who lied for him, conned for him, sold us down the river for him, and sent our young men to die for him.

Despicable is the only response I have to this bunch of self-serving gobshites who betrayed us all.

A crucial distinction

It’s often said (particularly over the past three weeks) that Britain has an “alcohol problem”. But, in reality, even if you accept the analysis of the neo-Prohibitionists at face value, we have three separate problems which may overlap to some extent, but certainly aren’t one monolithic issue:

  1. An increase in late-night alcohol-related disorder, particularly in town and city centres
  2. Many more people regularly drinking at levels that in the long term are likely to do serious damage to their health
  3. A rise in drinking, often at hazardous levels, amongst under-18s
Clearly, the strategies needed to combat these three issues are going to be distinctly different, and indeed may conflict with each other – encouraging drinking on licensed premises may reduce uncontrolled excess, but at the same time may lead to more late-night violence. It’s certainly far from certain that cutting average consumption across the population is a magic bullet for any of them.

And it’s funny how we are at least officially stricter on underage sales than at any time in living memory, yet apparently far more underage drinking goes on. Maybe the approach in the past of tolerating it to some extent, but keeping it within bounds, worked better at controlling the overall level.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Peace in our time

I see that Mike Lees, Managing Director of Tennent Caledonian Breweries, has given his qualified support for minimum pricing in Scotland:

He said the company would back minimum pricing as long as the measures proposed are “fair, proportionate and part of an overall programme to reduce the abuse of alcohol”.
Ah well, that’s going to happen, isn’t it?

Of course, if you take the tobacco company approach to the alcohol industry, of running a cash cow in a slowly declining market, minimum pricing makes a lot of sense, as it protects your margins and eliminates most price competition. But it is not in the interest of consumers.
SNP MSP Michael Matheson welcomed Tennent’s backing for the proposal.

“This is indeed very welcome news,” he said. “Tennent’s understand that responsible producers have nothing to fear with minimum pricing and that only low-end, dirt-cheap alcohol will be affected.
But minimum pricing isn’t just about targeting low-end, dirt-cheap alcohol, is it? Even at 40p a unit it would lead to an increase in the price of many mainstream products. At 50p a unit it sweeps up, I would say, 80-85% of the market.

As I said before, are a £1.10 half-litre can of Stella, a £4 bottle of wine or a £12 bottle of whisky really “dirt cheap”?

I would lay money that if we ever see minimum pricing in any part of the UK, the minimum price will be increased year-on-year by more than the rate of inflation.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

I blame the women

Or Richard Preston does, anyway.

He’s got the germ of a point, really. When drinking was a male preserve that was kept out of sight in backstreet boozers, we never had all this anti-drink hysteria.

BURKA BAN IS WRONG


I have to say that I'm a bit miffed about UKIP's plan to ban the burka because I support choice.

If woman wants to wear it, I don't have a problem with it, and if it is enforced as a means of oppression, then that should be dealt with as an honour crime or domestic violence issue. My disappointment with UKIP is because this is about a ban.

I joined UKIP because it was a non-racist, liberal party against that sort of thing. This smells a bit ugly but the wearing of the burka shouldn't be a taboo subject for debate either.

Banning things is with us. The smoking ban, and other assaults on people's lifestyles have started the ball rolling. What is said about freedom and choice is as relevant to smoking as it is to the Burka.

In this clip below, Nigel Farage talks about the reasons for UKIP's stance on this and below that a letter from Lord Pearson in the Times.

As the UKIP PPC for Louth and Horncastle, I can say that I will still align my political support with UKIP, where I hope to be able to influence and add my views to the discussion on the burka ban and a woman's right to choose her own mode of dress.



The following letter from UKIP Leader Lord Pearson was published in The Times on Weds 20 January :

Sir,

Alan Sked and Richard Milne (letters, Jan 19) have missed the deeper points about UKIP’s suggestion that the burka should be banned in public places. Your leading article (Jan 16) warned that our proposed ban on wearing the burka in public buildings could set us on the road to fascism. However, one of the 21/7 bombers escaped wearing the burka; the hidden face can also hide a terrorist.
When we talk of terrorism, we usually refer to a problem coming from within Islam. Of all the religions, Islam is the only one whose leaders do not wish their followers to integrate into our society, and Sharia, which can alas be described as gender apartheid, holds growing sway in too many parts of our country. So the burka is a symbol of separation, discrimination and fear.
Nor does it have any place in mainstream Islam. The Grand Mufti of Egypt has said it is “not Islamic”. The Muslim Canadian Congress has described it as a “political issue promoted by extremists”, and called for it to be banned.
Let us not forget that Islam is very different to our Judaeo-Christian culture. It is a religious, political and legal system rolled into one, a whole way of life based on the Koran, and the penalty for leaving it can be death. A ban on the burka would be for freedom, not fascism.
We must not run away from Islam, but debate it openly, particularly with the vast majority of Muslims who are our friends.
Lord Pearson Of Rannoch
Leader, UKIP

Here is a link to a piece in the Express about the need for a debate on the issue and I do, at least, agree with that if there are women out there who are forced into wearing the burka - in the same way that smokers are forced into exclusion.

Head still firmly stuck in sand

Here’s more of the usual delusional nonsense from CAMRA in this press release by Iain Loe: Missed opportunity to support pubs

However, there is nothing in the measures to ensure that these pubs will still be around in years to come when 52 pubs close their doors each week across the UK.
Now why do you think all those pubs might be closing in a way they never did before, Iain? Here’s a crossword clue: Reason for mass pub closures in Britain (7,3). So what did you do to fight it? Oh, nothing. So don’t be surprised at the results.
Minimum alcohol unit pricing would not hit the responsible drinker as claimed by Government.
So are you saying that every single person who has ever bought some off-trade alcohol for consumption at home for less than 50p a unit is an irresponsible drinker? Really?

Those immoral supermarkets

Anyone reading this blog regularly will have worked out that I’m not a great fan of the present government. But scarcely a day goes by when the principal opposition party gives us another reason for not voting for them.

Take, for example, this nonsense from Iain Duncan Smith, someone who has long struck me as one of the biggest twerps in politics, and who gives the impression of having no understanding of or belief in liberty.

David Cameron should impose significant increases in taxes on beer, wine and spirits if elected prime minister, according to the man charged with leading Conservative social policy.

In an interview with The Times, Iain Duncan Smith accuses the supermarkets of “being as close to immoral as you can get” by selling alcohol so cheaply and of “creating alcoholics”.

The former Tory leader says that the political parties are “in the grip of cowardice” for failing to advocate a big jump in the cost of alcohol for fear of alienating the voters before the general election. He says the tax should be ring-fenced for spending on the treatment of alcohol-related illnesses.

“We are into unpopular territory, but to deal with something like alcohol that is damaging the fabric of the nation we need to raise prices. There is a direct connection between the price of alcohol and consumption.”

As Woolpack Dave has said, “it's like choosing what colour stick to be beaten by.”

Last orders for public liberties

There’s another good article from Sp!ked here by Mick Hume, who says “the all-party support for yet another crackdown on drinkers is a sign of the illiberal times – and a far cry from past battles over booze.” He concludes:

Of course there are always problems linked to drinking and drunkenness, most of them as old as alcohol itself, some of them products of contemporary culture. But none of them is susceptible to the blunt instrument of more laws and bans and taxes. And none of them is a good enough excuse for the state to intrude ever further into public houses and public life, treating citizens as ‘children or savages’ by trying to dictate what sort of chairs or size of glasses they can be allowed.

If these issues are to be a ‘battleground on booze’ for our half-pint politicians in the General Election, it currently looks like a weird one where all sides are standing on the same side of the battle lines, shouting last orders. Time somebody made a stand for the freedom to think and drink for ourselves.

Friday, January 22, 2010

At the sign of the Ostrich


I recently received an e-mail inviting me to make a donation to fund CAMRA’s challenge to the decision by the Office of Fair Trading not to investigate the beer tie. I have to say I’m not hugely bothered about the pub company beer tie anyway, and the giant pub companies are visibly unravelling before our eyes, so I declined to contribute. But, in view of the wave of neo-Prohibitionist sentiment sweeping the land, I can’t help thinking that this is on a par with rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. You might have thought that CAMRA, as an organisation supposedly championing the interests of pubs and beer drinkers, would be fighting this tooth and nail, but instead they have been puzzlingly silent, and indeed on some issues have even sought to make common cause with the anti-drink lobby. You have to wonder why this should be.

CAMRA was formed in the early 1970s and took its inspiration from many of the left-wing campaigns of that era. Its name seems to echo that of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. For many of its members, a key motivation was taking a tilt against the corporate behemoths of the Big Six breweries and their bland, commoditised keg beer. At the time, Roger Protz even advocated the nationalisation of the brewing industry along the lines of the Carlisle State Management Scheme. Much of that mindset persists today, with the major supermarkets joining the international brewers in the cast of villains, and CAMRA still too often looks to government for solutions. It is difficult to adapt that frame of mind to one in which the chief enemy is the anti-drink lobby, with government and organisations such as the BMA in the vanguard, not the evil capitalists.

Many of CAMRA’s public pronouncements are based on a pair of underlying shibboleths, that “real ale” is a morally superior product not only to other beers, but to all other alcoholic drinks, and that drinking in a pub is “better” than drinking at home. Both of these ideas are very questionable – am I really a bad person for drinking a bottle of BrewDog Punk IPA in my living room? – and probably not really believed by most of the membership, but they lead CAMRA to take a particularist view and fail to see a common cause with the guy buying a slab of Carling from Tesco. Indeed, to many activists, he is far more of an enemy than Don Shenker and Sir Liam Donaldson.

When the vast majority of alcohol-related disorder is related to consumption on licensed premises, to portray the pub as an environment of responsible, controlled drinking seems very much like special pleading. And I would lay money that the average member of CAMRA – as someone with a general interest in alcoholic drinks – actually drinks more at home than the average British adult.

While CAMRA is in theory a democratic organisation, in practice policymaking does not happen in a particularly democratic way. Indeed, the way it is organised is very reminiscent of a 1970s trade union, which is probably what it was based on. It is run by an unpaid, elected National Executive, although most of the work in practice is done by paid staff. National Executive elections are often uncontested and candidates rarely make explicit policy statements. It gives the impression of being a cosy club of mutual backscratchers. Policy is decided at the Annual General Meeting, and only those actually attending, who are only about 1% of the the total membership, can vote.

This is probably no worse than any other comparable campaigning organisation, but the problem is that it is far from clear exactly what CAMRA is campaigning for, and thus at a national level it ends up promoting policies that do not necessarily reflect the views and interests of the wider membership. The classic example of this was championing the Beer Orders in the late 1980s which ended up having a disastrous effect on the British brewing industry and pub trade. The letters column in the monthly newsletter What’s Brewing has been very much reduced in size and dumbed down in recent years and seems to be censored to avoid anything too critical of the official line being published – last year I sent them a perfectly reasonable letter about minimum pricing that, not surprisingly, never appeared.

During the lifetime of CAMRA, there has been an astonishing upsurge in small-scale craft brewing in the UK, something that its founders would probably have never envisaged. I’m not saying CAMRA is solely responsible for this, but it has certainly created a climate in which it can flourish. This has been accompanied by a growth in the number of specialist pubs showcasing the products of these breweries, and of course by CAMRA beer festivals. The upshot is that many beer enthusiasts in effect do most of their drinking in a bubble insulated from the wider world of youth bars and family dining, so it’s not entirely surprising that they take the view that general industry trends don’t affect them.

As I’ve said before, it doesn’t matter how you see things – what matters is what your opponents think. You may think the anti-smoking and anti-alcohol campaigns are entirely different issues, but if the Righteous regard them as two sides of the same coin there’s nothing you can do about it. And there’s no evidence that anti-alcohol campaigners draw any distinction between rowdy town-centre venues and traditional community pubs, nor between real ale and other forms of alcohol. To believe that they will, or can ever be persuaded to, is a delusion.

For a while, the leadership of CAMRA may continue to believe that what they hold dear and campaign for can somehow stand clear of the anti-drink tide. But one day, of course, the waters will suddenly and unexpectedly rise up and wash them away, and by then it will be too late.

If CAMRA is not prepared to confront the wider issues affecting drinkers and the drinks trade, then it needs to abandon the pretence that it does and draw in its horns to become basically just a non-political beer drinkers’ club. Which is the aspect of it that works anyway.

(There are actually a few pubs dotted around the country called the Ostrich – the one I remember is in Castle Acre, Norfolk. There’s also a well-known one at Colnbrook in Middlesex. Maybe CAMRA should make one of them its Pub of the Year)

You may also be interested in this assessment of CAMRA's successes and failures which I wrote five years ago: Only Here for the Beer

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

So it begins

The first shots have been fired in the great War on Drink, with the government announcing the introduction of a mandatory code of practice for pubs and bars. All you can drink promotions and speed drinking competitions will be banned from April, and pubs required to provide free tap water, while from October smaller measures of beer, wine and spirits must be offered and any customers appearing to be under 18 must be asked for identification. Now, I’m not going to rush to the barricades to defend all you can drink promotions, but taken as a whole these measures represent an unprecedented degree of interference in the way licensed premises are run, which will impose new burdens on responsible and irresponsible licensees alike.

While in reality I can’t see it happening very often, requiring pubs and bars to offer free tap water opens up the opportunity for bloody-minded people to occupy space and use glassware while contributing nothing to the overheads of the establishment. If you were running a pub in the Lake District and a party of eight thirsty hikers came in and demanded eight pints of tap water with ice you might not be too impressed.

I’ve no problem with requiring pubs and bars to offer 125ml glasses of wine, which after all are roughly equivalent to a half of 5% beer or a 35ml measure of spirits. But I’m puzzled as to what they mean by requiring them to serve smaller measures of beers and spirits. Do any pubs actually only serve beer in pints? Or do they mean they’re going to make pubs offer nips, which will involve a costly investment in glassware and possibly dispense equipment to meet a negligible demand? And, likewise, does it just mean pubs will have to offer single measures of spirits, or that a single must be defined as 25ml rather than 35ml, which will require all those pubs that have gone over to 35ml to replace all their optics?

To his credit, on the radio Home Secretary Alan Johnson expressed scepticism about minimum pricing, making the point that it had the potential to penalise reponsible drinkers on modest budgets while leaving the comfortably-off unscathed. But I can’t help thinking that this package marks the first stage of a long process that will be fraught with problems and unintended consequences and won’t in practice do anything to create a more healthy and responsible drinking culture. And, sadly, the Conservatives and Liberal (sic) Democrats seem to be engaged in a bidding competition with Labour as to who can crack down hardest on the Demon Drink.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

The Goldilocks effect

There’s a lot of Righteous handwringing about the statistic that the Scots are drinking 12.2 litres of pure alcohol each per year. This is, apparently, enough for every single adult to exceed the government’s (ludicrously low and scientifically unjustified) alcohol consumption guidelines.

But, hang on, that adds up to less than one and half pints a day of 4% ABV beer, which hardly seems to equate to problem drinking. Isn’t the problem more that too many people, within that average, are drinking at excessive and problematical levels, while many others drink little or nothing? I would have said someone who drinks two pints of beer on five days a week, and has two alcohol-free days (thus consuming 23 units over the course of a week) was the very model of a moderate and responsible drinker.

Is it really possible anyway to define an optimal quantity of alcohol for a society to drink each year? Obviously, if you’re a prohibitionist, the answer is nil. But, equally obviously, those of us who do enjoy the occasional drink can’t give the same answer. How much is not too much, not too little, but just right? Scandinavian countries such as Norway, Sweden and Finland have punitive alcohol taxes and draconian restrictions on availability, and have markedly lower levels of average consumption, yet still tend to have high levels of alcoholism and acute alcohol poisoning, suggesting that the “forbidden fruit” approach isn’t a magic bullet.

Rather than average per capita consumption, which is really a meaningless figure, wouldn’t a more relevant statistic be the incidence of genuine alcohol-related health problems? And isn’t the problem less that people on average drink too much, but that they drink badly, with drinking too concentrated both amongst individuals and over time - a point made by this rather old article from the Observer?

Eight days a week

I recently concluded a poll asking the question “On how many days in a typical week do you have at least one alcoholic drink?” There were 48 responses, broken down as follows:

None: 0 (0%)
1: 6 (12%)
2: 1 (2%
3: 3 (6%)
4: 7 (15%)
5: 6 (12%
6: 6 (12%)
7: 19 (40%)

Good to see that there are no teetotallers reading this blog! Given that 19 people, or two-fifths, said they had a drink every day, it’s clear that official guidelines are being widely and cheerfully ignored. And over three-quarters said they had a drink on more days than they didn’t.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Boiling a frog in wine

I have to say in the two weeks since the New Year there has been such a torrent of neo-prohibitionist nonsense in the media that I have begun to suffer from “bansturbation fatigue” and struggle to summon up any fresh reserves of outrage. Pete Brown is doing an excellent job of countering it on his blog, though.

But the report in today’s Telegraph that the government have had a change of heart and are planning after all to introduce minimum alcohol pricing cannot be allowed to pass without comment.

It is understood that ministers are working on a “staged process” to introduce minimum pricing. Initially, the drinks industry will have to increase warnings on alcohol cans and bottles. Supermarkets and other retailers will then be banned from selling alcohol at “below cost” – the wholesale price of drinks – if they refuse to do so voluntarily.

The minimum price will then be introduced as the third and final phase of the scheme. It is being introduced in this way to “bring the public along” as alcohol prices are steadily increased.

So, like the proverbial boiling frog, you introduce it stealthily, step by step, and hope the drinking public won’t notice they are being screwed.

It has to be said that “minimum pricing” isn’t a one-size-fits-all policy – it all depends on where the minimum price is set. The typical price of mainstream off-trade alcohol is around 35-40p per unit. So a 35p per unit minimum price would only affect cheap bottom-end products and multibuy deals, whereas 50p would penalise most at-home drinkers.

Health Secretary Andy Burnham is quoted as saying:
There is rising public concern and we have never shrunk from taking tough public health decisions and we are not going to start now. We need to balance the rights of people who drink responsibly with those who buy ludicrously cheap booze and go out and harm themselves and others.
So are a £1.10 half-litre can of Stella, a £4 bottle of wine or a £12 bottle of whisky “ludicrously cheap”? Because those are things that will be outlawed by a 50p minimum price.

I have discussed in the past the various problems associated with minimum pricing. But of course, the biggest problem is that it’s unlikely to achieve the claimed effect (even if that effect were in fact desirable). And, of course, when it is seen not to work, we will set out down another slippery slope.

It is also typical of the sloppy standards of journalism that the Telegraph article is illustrated with a picture of three drunk girls staggering down a street, who one would assume have been drinking in licensed premises and paying over 50p per unit. Apart from arguably putting a slight brake on “pre-loading”, minimum pricing will do nothing to stop alcohol-related town centre disorder.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Up Town Top Ranking

My esteemed blogging colleague Cooking Lager has often been critical of traditional, “dumpy” pubs, saying that if he wants to take his lady squeeze out for a drink he is looking for somewhere that is at the same time more up-market and less old-fashioned. There’s an example in this comment on Pete Brown’s blog:

Oh and traditional boozers do not fit the bill, the kids don't like 'em and neither do most women. By welcoming establishments I mean something smarter and modern.
The only problem is, I think he’s describing a type of establishment that simply doesn’t exist, at least round here.

Yes, there are plenty of pubs and bars that have gone for a more modern image, but in general that has been accompanied by an overt appeal to the youth market, and they are often places to avoid unless you’re looking for a fight or a pull. So many times, a pub going “trendy” has been a precursor to a downhill spiral that ends in closure.

On the other hand, many of the pubs with the most solidly middle-class clientele, because of their locations, are ones that still put across a resolutely traditional image, such as the Nursery in Heaton Norris, the Church in Cheadle Hulme and the Davenport Arms in Woodford. In central Stockport, the only two pubs with any aspirations to being upmarket, the Arden Arms and the Red Bull, are both staunchly traditional in aspect.

There are a few pubs dotted about that have made a conscious attempt to replace benches with sofas, introduce a wine list and serve ciabattas, but the chief characteristic of their clientele compared with their competitors tends to be not that it’s more classy, but it’s a bit younger.

There used to be some notably snooty pubs in stockbroker belt areas – the Admiral Rodney in Prestbury springs to mind – but very often those were the most olde worlde of the lot. And the upper middle classes seem to like entertaining at home more nowadays, with the result that I don’t find any Cheshire pubs as exclusive as they once were.

Likewise, there was once a vogue for drinking in hotel bars, but the hotel trade has changed, with many of the established “coaching inns” being converted for other use, and I don’t think that hotel bars are seen as anything like so aspirational nowadays, tending to cater mainly for captive residents.

Of course there are plenty of country dining pubs that fit the bill perfectly, the Brunning & Price chain being a classic example. You won’t find many trackie bottoms in there. But they are very much a rural phenomenon that doesn’t really penetrate into the conurbations. And I think he’s looking at going for a drink rather than taking the lady squeeze out for a meal to impress.

So, the question remains, if you want to go for a drink in an urban or suburban area, in somewhere that is smart and contemporary, where you can avoid chavs, scruffy ale aficionados and hacking, mild-drinking old boys, where do you go?

Sunday, January 10, 2010

OOPS!


It looks like I've upset someone on Facebook who had this to say :

"Patsy Nurse (surely that can't be her real name??) It is NOT Governments that divide the World; on the contrary, they have been labouring mightily since at least 1920 (League of Nations) to unite it and form One World Government, run by sinister figures such as Bilderbergers, Elders of Zion, Davos Summitteers, EU bureaucrats, Common Purpose members, freemasons, Bnai Brith people etc etc

"It is the way of the World that divides the World: human nature is quarrelsome; there are 2000 languages out there; an awful lot of History (and we are all prisoners of our pasts, whether we like it or not).

"Unfortunately, neither Patsies nor Nurses understand these complex realities: "Good fences make Good Neighbours", (Robert Frost, American poet) Think how difficult it is even for wives to live with their husbands nowadays (especially the menopausal ones) so how can whole Nations and Peoples be expected to cohabit peacefully? Conflicts are inevitable: armies of diplomats exist to try to postpone them but real Armies have every interest to fight for promotion (as above) funding, glory etc. Unfortunately, Patsies and Nurses do not & will never understand this, because they are women and War is a Man thing (see Othello again) Just stick to your knitting please, Patsy.

.. and this...

"Patsy Nurse (the name says it all, doesn't it all) knows NOTHING of the Pomp and Circumstance of Glorious War (as Othello called it). It brings out the best in people, as well as the worst. But it is also a powerful instrument of historical change & economic & technological development.
"There are plenty of other reasons for grief and anger (we all have to die and we all quarrel). These are normal human emotions. And they cause war, rather than being caused by it.
Women love losing their sons! They don't want them around the house eating, farting and taking up space after the age of 18. Many brothers & sisters are not particularly close; they squabble and fight from tots to teens, then quarrel over parents' inheritances. As for lovers; well love comes and goes.
"Even if Johnny does come marching home again, his girl will have written him a "Dear John" letter by then and found someone else with more £££££. Women also love being war widows: the pension and inheritance may well be worth more than the divorce settlement she would have got, if she had gone to law. And enemy action saves lawyers' fees. Mind you, he would have had to pay those too, even if the IED didn't get him first, the divorce would've hit him just the same."

OK - I admit my reaction to war is emotional and my idealist approach would tend to err on the side of not wanting anyone to die for any reason that couldn't be resolved by political debate, but I honestly don't knit and for anyone who doubted it, my name is real - Patricia Margaret Nurse. My friends call me Patsy, my professional friends call me Pat. I told my critic that he could call me Mrs Nurse.

My critic went on to friend me and then had this to say about smoking :

"Tea is bad enough (full of poisonous caffeine) cigarettes are suicide. Why don't you just take up crack & heroine instead; your statistical chances of survival may even be greater, in the long term."

Despite his bad spelling of heroin, he deemed it right that he should send me a personal message to correct my spelling of "hypocrasy" (Hypocrisy) . I defriended him and then discovered he was a BNP supporter. I wonder if they all think this way?

Missing the point

Charles Clover has an article in today’s Sunday Times entitled Save the pub or let it die? It’s your shout. At least he recognises that there are other reasons for the relative decline of the pub trade beyond the simplistic one of cheap supermarket prices:

Our vicar tells me there were six pubs in the village in 1917. Why is it that we lost only one pub between 1917 and 1997 but have lost three since then? That, we must assume, is caused by recent trends, chief of them drinking at home. We choose to take home our cheap supermarket booze and drink it watching a DVD. Then there are the drink-driving laws and more recently the laws on smoking (which inadvertently put a pub’s least attractive clientele out on the street in front of you in most weathers, a good reason to drive by).
However, I doubt whether smokers will be happy to be described as “a pub’s least attractive clientele”. And his prescription for revival seems distinctly wishy-washy:
Our family went on an impromptu pub crawl with friends just after the new year, partly to introduce our teenagers to each other, partly to sample the local pubs while they were still there. What began as nostalgic recreation of our student days and a bit of bravado made a strong impression on the teenagers. They met local people of different ages whom they would not otherwise have met. They were fascinated by the different atmospheres and architecture, even of the naff ones. We all drank responsibly.

The adults vowed to go out for a pint more often.

As a nation, we have the choice. A crackdown on supermarkets advertising cheap alcohol, coupled with lower tax for weaker beer — favoured by both the health select committee and Camra, the real ale campaign — could even now turn back the clock and draw people to more civilised drinking, down the pub.

I hardly think a few well-meaning middle class people going to the pub slightly more often (a resolution that is unlikely to last beyond Easter anyway) is going to make a ha’p’orth of difference when, as I have posted before, the decline of pubs has been driven by widespread trends in society, of which relative price is by no means the most significant. Making off-trade alcohol more expensive won’t give people a single extra penny to spend in pubs.

And the weaker beers he is referring to are not those of ordinary bitter strength of 3.5 – 4.0% ABV, but those below 2.8% ABV, for which realistically there is no demand. You could sell it for 50p a pint and it wouldn’t save a single pub.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

THANKS NULAB



... and this is why smokers hate NuLab... H/T - The Doctor

Where you do your drinking

I recently concluded a poll asking the question “Where do you drink your beer (or other alcoholic drinks)?” This was prompted by comments on Tandleman’s blog about too many beer bloggers being mainly at-home drinkers. “Most (but by no means all) bloggers are home drinkers and really need to get out more”, he said. There were 66 responses, broken down as follows:

All, or the vast majority, in the pub: 13 (20%)
Mostly in the pub: 6 (9%)
About half and half: 16 (24%)
Mostly at home: 13 (20%)
All, or the vast majority, at home: 18 (27%)

I was a little surprised that the second option got so little support, as I might have thought there were a lot of people who were mostly pub drinkers but also liked sampling the more exotic beers at home. Obviously the poll does not go into people’s motivation, but it is noticeable that the biggest single category was those who did all, or virtually all, their drinking at home. I would once have said “mostly in the pub” but am now more “half and half”.

Friday, January 8, 2010

THE BEST SNOWMEN MADE THIS WINTER?


I think these are the funniest snowmen I've ever seen.


AN OPINION REVISITED

As I've just written on this issue for a local publication, I thought it might be good to share this piece below which was written two years ago and revisted today.
________________________________________________________________
The Govt is taking sides by introducing the smoking ban and the result is legal justification of discrimination and exclusion against a minority group, argues lifelong smoker Pat Nurse.
________________________________________________________________

In the years before July 1st last year, when the spectre of the smoking ban hung in the air like a putrid smell, I made my own feeble stand against it by refusing to go to any restaurants, cafes, pubs, public halls, hotels and centres that didn’t have facilities for smokers.

I also complained when confronted with offensive signs in some no-smoking establishments such as “For the comfort of ALL our customers, this is a no-smoking café..” and “Smoking is prohibited because it spoils the taste of our coffee..“

I politely pointed out that this is clearly not the case in either circumstance for smoking customers who are obviously not welcome in such places. I also argued that a simple neutral sign saying “No Smoking” was less offensive and a perfectly adequate message.

I naively believed that other smokers, and tolerant non-smokers, would take this same stance, that they would add their voice to the debate and the consultation, and the Government would be persuaded that a ban was bad for business and a total smoking ban, as opposed to a well ventilated choice, went against Britain’s internationally renowned “just, equal, and tolerant society.“

When the Govt announced the blanket ban, and said smokers didn’t have the right to go out and kill other people, and we should be made to stop for our own good, it was like a kick in the teeth.

I was in despair at how my Government could take sides with anti-smoking groups who over the previous 40 years had engaged in a long, oppressive and scurrilous campaign aimed at making me hate myself and others hate me even more because I like tobacco.

My objections to the smoking ban have never been about not being able to smoke, or not having the right to smoke where I like. They have always been based on my view that a ban gives justification to intolerance towards people who like to do things that others don’t. .. even if what they do doesn’t harm anyone else.

The anti-smoking lobby has successfully persuaded Government that smokers are suicidal serial killers and ministers seem to have taken no account that for every study that says passive smoking is harmful to others there are many more that say it isn’t.

The Government shouldn’t be taking sides or giving my taxes via the NHS to campaigns that ostracise me. It certainly shouldn’t create legislation in support of one side of an argument that hasn’t yet been proved, but unfairly discriminates against a minority group of people, and in particular a smaller proportion, like me, who say smoking is embedded in their culture.
I’ve rarely been out since the smoking ban. I don’t feel welcome and I’m not comfortable in places where I can’t smoke. I don’t see the fun in being banished to the cold outside whenever I want a cigarette. It makes me feel “dirty” , excluded and undignified. Dogs are more welcome inside a hotel or a pub these days than smokers.

Kicking smokers outside has, in my opinion, only made things worse for those who hate smoking. Before the ban, we were contained in special designated areas where no-one was affected except those who smoked and those who worked there.

Now, the smell of smoke is constantly on the streets, and smokers, non-smokers and anti-smokers mix on nice days in beer or restaurant gardens and there is friction.

No-one wants to return to the days when smoking was allowed everywhere, but let’s have balance. Let people choose whether they want to go to smoking or non-smoking establishments, and let workers decide which of these they want to work in.

The current situation has just forced us all together which can only lead to outright war. If a ban is disproportionably extended to outside areas, then people like me will become even more reclusive.

I believe the ban has also promoted smoking in a way we haven’t seen since the old days when tobacco companies were allowed to advertise.

I’m starting to see huge signs appear in the street such as “Heated smoking garden here..“ and with smoking and yet more possible restrictions in the news almost every day, the issue is brought to the attention of children and young people in way it never has before.

Pubs, clubs, restaurants, hotels and private enterprise should be allowed to make their own choices. What is wrong with choice? It should never be a radical idea in a democratic society.

I would never give up smoking. I’ve done it all my life. A smoker is who I am and I don‘t wish to be different to please other people. I don’t smoke less because of the ban. I smoke more in protest although I’ve threatened to give up for the first time in 40 years only if the smoking ban is fully reversed!

I don’t go outside with a cigarette in my hand like a serial killer with an axe looking for victims. Personally, I’ve always been a polite smoker, recognising that some people don’t like it and good manners are important.

Before the hate campaign against smokers began, I always asked before lighting up if the person next to me objected. Most times they didn’t, and if they did, I was happy to move. Even before the latest offensive “dirty chucker” campaign I always disposed of my cigarette ends in a bin. I don’t drop any kind of litter and never have because I respect my environment.

The litter campaign of the 1970s had a lifelong impact on me. This sort of campaign, along with a reminder to smokers to employ good manners when around those who don’t like smoke, would have been a far more positive way to attack the “sin” without demonising the “sinner.“

If this had been done, perhaps both smokers and anti--smokers would now be more tolerant of each other.

I’ve watched as the war on smokers has got nastier, infecting the public with fear over their good health, which in turn has led to prejudice and a stereo-typical image of smokers as dirty, uncaring, and selfish people. Inevitably, we are now seeing discrimination against smokers because of such a shameful campaign.

First it was the NHS that began to be selective about treating smokers, who have a right to health services they pay for through taxes, and then some employers began to discriminate by employing non-smokers only and in some cases sacking workers simply because they smoked even if it had nothing to do with their ability to do the job they were paid for.

The smoking ban adds credence, legal and moral justification to the above and that is why, in my opinion, the Health Act is such a bad piece of legislation. To misquote singer Tracy Chapman : “Please give my honest regards to the (minister) for disregarding me” .

I feel that is exactly what Patricia Hewitt and Labour did when they introduced this spiteful ban and my vote will reflect this. I hope other smokers angry at their shabby treatment will choose wisely and not vote in more of the same from any of the three main parties who don’t seem to care about smokers and can’t understand what all the fuss is about.

Many smokers are angry about being ignored, neglected, rejected and demonised. They will use their vote at the next election and if they are like me, it certainly won’t be for New Labour who have proved how much they dislike me and my kind. The party that gets my vote will be the one that proposes to treat me like an adult human being.

We may be in the minority but our combined 12 million votes could make the difference between whether a party wins or loses the next election. Those that want the smokers’ vote, in my opinion, should look at the whole smoking issue afresh and with impartiality.

WHAT NOT TO DO WHEN FACED WITH A PRICK


I was rather interested to hear the following story when I caught up with an old friend who I hadn't spoken to since last summer.

The friend tells me how on a beautiful sunny day, he was with a mate and they were both sitting outside of their local pub smoking.

Apparently, a man came outside with a meal, sat on the table next to their's - despite others being available - and then politely asked the smokers to put out their cigarettes so he could enjoy his meal.

Personally, I would have pointed out that there were other tables both inside and outside; and that as a non-smoker he has more choice about where to sit and where to go; and I would have said that I would indeed put out my cigarette once I had finished it.

This, however, is not what happened.

The smoker in this case replied :"Yes, certainly," before then stubbing out his cigarette in the man's meal.

As much as I can sympathise with this action, this kind of behaviour will not help our cause for choice but rather give the antis a loaded gun with which to continue to shoot us in the head.

Image is everything and it's hard enough to escape the "filthy smoker" view that society has of us without, frankly, bad mannered behaviour like this.

As much as this issue has become a friction point more than it ever was before the divisive blanket smoking ban, I would urge angry and offended smokers to ensure they get the upper hand in these instances by remaining dignified and polite even in the worst of circumstances and let the antis be seen for what they are - selfish and intolerant anti-humanists who care only for themselves.


Thursday, January 7, 2010

Fear the Witch

Ever since the dawn of humanity, some people have sought to exercise control over others. In this excellent piece, blogger Leg-iron explains what has been perhaps the single key technique over the years:

The real fear is fear itself. Not fear of the Thing, but fear of being accused of being the Thing.
If you do not join in the witchhunt, and join in enthusiastically, then you may very well be a witch yourself, or at least Soft on Witches.
People will submit to full body scanners because if they refuse, they know the mob will take it as a sign of guilt. They will cheer on minimum alcohol pricing because if they don't then they must support alcoholism. They will worship the Green God because if they don't they will be seen as polar bear killers. Standard witchhunting methodology - the mob will always support the witchfinder because the witchfinder might accuse any who don't. The mob will be keen to report the witch to prove that they are not also witches. The mob is easily controlled by the fear of being accused, not the fear of the witch.
People will submit to all those lunatic controls on flights, some of which make absolutely no sense at all, not because they are scared of terrorists but because they are scared of being suspected themselves. All these controls on smoking, drinking, diet, travelling, what you can say and so on are not there for your benefit. They are to keep you in the mob, to keep you compliant and to keep you too scared to object.
Obviously this has strong resonances for the current anti-alcohol crusade, but it goes far wider in society, in fact in every case where the cry goes up “the innocent have nothing to fear” – implying that if you raise any objection, you can’t be entirely innocent yourself.

A prime example is the hysteria over paedophiles, which has led to millions of people needing expensive, time-consuming and probably ineffective background checks, and responsible men avoiding work with children for fear of others questioning their motives.

Interestingly, he says that such crusades eventually fail not because of popular opposition, but because those in authority decide that they have gone too far (as they always do):
The Righteous fail when they go too far. When people in authority start speaking out against them. The Pope stopped the Inquistion. The Church stopped the Witchfinder-General. The common people did nothing because they were under the thrall of 'nothing to hide, nothing to fear' until someone they saw as an authority figure spoke out.

There are signs of this starting now. It could be messy, the Righteous have never had so many projects running at once before. What they'll take down with them, and whether they'll all go at once is anyone's guess but they will fail and I think it'll be soon.

Let us hope that the day when Sir Liam Donaldson and Don Shenker go the way of Matthew Hopkins and Joe McCarthy is not too far away.

THE ROD THAT DIDN'T MOVE


Make of this from the Fail Blog what you will. My own view is it's about as effective as the Govt we have currently got in power but I'm sure there are more phallic associations here....

THE LAST DECADE OF GOVT BULLYING ?




I was sent this radio broadcast today by Patrick Basham, from the Democracy Institute with his predictions for the decade ahead.

Patrick reckons there will be a dramatic growth of people who are not willing to be pushed around by the state and they will resist if the pressure to abandon their pleasures such as smoking , drinking and eating "unhealthy" food does not stop.

The battle he says will be the individual against the institution.

Another guest on the show, Celia Szusterman from the University of Westminster, agrees with Patrick's view on the future but guest Said Khan from the University of Detroit, did not. He said he disagreed there was a move towards the bully state and said people saw Govt as the "nurturer."

I wonder if he drinks, smokes or is somewhat overweight and if he lives here and not in the US. If so, I fail to see how he couldn't agree with Basham.

I guess we will have to wait and see but fingers crossed. I, for one, want my life back and I want to be accepted in this country that I have lived and worked in all my life - beginning with being born in a war zone in Cyprus because my English smoking father was fighting for Britain.

You can listen to Patrick's predictions here : http://democracyinstitute.org/Media/Patrick_Basham_BBC_World_Today.mp3

WORTH A READ


... and this is one reason why I like UKIP. How come we see the smug politicians from the main parties doing their thing in Afghanistan - that is promoting themselves - but when an ex-serviceman from UKIP enters the war zone it is strangely quiet on the media front.

ROAD TO PROHIBITION HELL




One thing my mother always told me was that Italian drivers were nuts and I remember her recounting the story of a favourite English Priest who spent time in her mother country.

His overwhelming memory was how trying to cross the road was like taking your life into your own hands and indeed, he almost had his foot run over when he attempted to get from one side to the other in Rome.

Imagine my surprise, therefore, when I read that Italy is considering a ban on smoking in cars to make drivers safer. I doubt that if such a ban was enforced, the Italian motorists would drive with less passion but then the smoking issue isn't about safety or health in any event and these irritable and unneccessary bans are creeping further into individual liberty and turning citizens into non-descript morons.

At least the article in the Wall Street Journal has this to say : Where is this tide of norms leading? The U.K. government is also considering the banning of smoking in the vicinity of children—no matter where, including private houses. Alas, the "where" is a crucial part. What governments are creeping toward is full sovereignty over citizens' private lives. Public health comes before property rights—this is the lesson. But how does this fit into the rules of a free society?

The existence of a space that is free from government intervention is the cornerstone of a free society. "On himself, over his body and mind, the individual is sovereign," to quote John Stuart Mill. This presupposes the very existence of a space where such sovereignty could find a home: private property defines such a space.

The government doesn't own restaurants (luckily), nor cars besides those used by ministers and high civil servants. It can properly regulate their use to prevent a reckless or dangerous behavior. But assuming that lighting up a cigarette is a distraction seriously affecting the other drivers, pushes the notion of negative externalities too far—and the realm of personal privacy too far back.

Read the article linked below about moves to further persecute smokers in the false name of good health and safety ( a new weapon now used to beat smokers).

* One final point of note is that in the years that I have covered a magistrates court, I only saw one motorist fined for a minor one car collision caused because the woman driver was reaching down into the footwell of her car to reach for a packet of fags as she drove. ONE CASE IN 10 YEARS. This monumental act of stupidity is not exclusive to one smoker but any other nut reaching down for something without pulling over and stopping first.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Let’s stagger to the barricades

All those who value choice, liberty and enjoying a pint should resist the killjoys’ war on “boozy Britain,” says Tim Black, who points out the rank snobbery and contempt for the lower orders that lies behind much of contemporary anti-drink policy.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Losing your head

Many years ago I used to sometimes go out for a drink with my father and my Uncle Bill, who is long since deceased. We would get three pints with dense, creamy heads, but he only had to take a couple of sips from his glass to make the head completely disappear, leaving him with the proverbial beer that was as flat as a fluke, whereas the other two heads remained intact. It must have been some characteristic in his saliva – maybe unusually acid – which reacted adversely with the beer.

Over the years I have come across a number of other individuals who have the same effect on their beer, including one with the perhaps appropriate name of Malcolm Swallow.

I have to say this makes a pint of beer look extremely unappetising, but it doesn’t seem to deter those who suffer from it. I wonder whether this is a phenomenon others have ever encountered.

Don’t worry - drink and be merry

H/t to Jeff Pickthall for this excellent article appearing in the Spectator.

The government acts as if booze is the root cause of all our social problems, says Leah McLaren, but it’s not. Drinking is an important part of British culture, the pub is the hub of the community, and health warnings can even be counterproductive.
She quotes from Professor David Hanson (for once a prof who talks sense), who says:
There is this idea that almost any alcohol is bad and it’s moving very quickly across Europe,’ he says of the recent spate of anti-binge-drinking campaigns sweeping Britain and continental Europe. ‘You’ve got this idea that alcohol is poison and that we need to reduce consumption and that will solve all our social problems. That simply doesn’t bear out historically. In the United States, for instance, prohibition actually introduced the practice of heavy drinking by making liquor an illicit substance.
and explains how an anti-drink crusade will simply lead to responsible people enjoying themselves less while actually making the situation of genuine problem drinkers worse.

... AND THIS ...


Another piece from the world wide web, this time Spiked and what a damn good piece is it too. I do completely agree with this point :" The intervening two decades have brought remarkable changes in the way that both smokers and giving up smoking are viewed in our society. It seems to me now that these changes are about far more than the way we see cigarettes. They mark a downward shift in the predominant cultural view of our humanity, and a demeaning of the qualities of adult autonomy and independence."

FROM THE BLOGOSPHERE



Ha ha ha - this made me laugh as Obnoxio often does.

... but this I don't find funny at all from Iain Dale. http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2009/12/exclusive-ukip-tries-to-muscle-in-on-tv.html

Why on earth should UKIP not take part in a leaders' debate on the BBC? Oh, that's right, I forgot. The electorate is not allowed choice but bullied, cajoled and conned into thinking that there is only really a choice of two, or three if we want to appear democratic. Strange choice of words from Iain as well who says that UKIP is "trying to muscle in on the debate." That shows exactly what contempt there is out there for democracy.

Dale also states that UKIP will not even be putting candidates throughout the UK.
WRONG Iain. They will and if the electorate is permitted to know that they have a choice by seeing what is on offer in the leadership debates, then it will cost the Tories votes.

I am afraid that what Cameron or Brown or Clegg fail to realise is exactly what sort of change the British people want. It is radical and life changing which can only come by breaking the three party system we have at present. Anything less than this kind of change is simply more of the same.

And when it comes to debates on Europe, immigration, etc.. then let's not forget that the British trust UKIP far more than the other main parties hence it's astounding second place win at the Euro elections.

Here is my prediction : If the main parties do not start listening to the electorate and don't stop treating voters with utter contempt, then 20 years from now the two main parties in the UK will be UKIP on the right and the BNP on the left.

If you think this claim is outrageous, then just remember there was a time when Labour never won elections until Ramsey McDonald became PM and the Liberals/Lib Dems/ Socialist Democratic bollox or whatever it calls it's irrelevant self these days, has also come further in Parlt then any of us expected 25 years ago when the seeds of this new party were sown from disaffected old Labourites and old Liberals.

Finally, I note one of the commenters on Dale's blog calls UKIP " a Tory presure group."

Ha ha ha. Dreamers and fools and that's why many of us old Labourites, disaffected Conservatives, non traditional voters, and freedom lovers, looking at where we can now put our support would never vote Tory.


THE DANGER OF PASSIVE OBESITY




Shocking, disgraceful, it shouldn't be allowed to happen!

What? I hear you ask.

Passive Obesity as a friend of mine is currently in hospital with a leg that is broken in two places because a fat person fell on him on New Year's Eve.

So, what can we do about this new public menace that could kill, cause serious illness, and harm others?

Well, let's use the example of the blanket smoking ban and exclude the overweight from "infecting" others with their obesity. Perhaps, separate rooms for the fat in pubs so they keep their danger to themselves, or maybe we should try introducing fat-free zones of 50 metres circumference around "normal" weight peolple.

Actually, I have a better idea. Why don't we just tolerate people for who they are and choose ourselves whether we want to be around such people or not!

Meanwhile, my friend, at the mercy of the NHS, is having his operation today - 5 days after the event because the hospital is on a festive go-slow and the required surgeons have been too busy enjoying their fat salaries to see to my friend's needs before the holiday ends.

I should add, however, that the less well paid skeleton staff on duty who have been looking after my friend during his hospital stay, and drip feeding him morphine for the pain, have been as nice as plum pudding.

JUST BECAUSE I LIKE IT ...



I really do enjoy working at the Market Rasen Mail and one of the reasons is the drive home ... especially when you get views like this.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Trapped!

Well, it could be worse.

Guests celebrating new year at the highest pub in England had a longer than expected stay, after heavy snow left them stranded for three days.

About 30 people arrived at the Tan Hill Inn in North Yorkshire on New Year's Eve to welcome in 2010.

But the wintry weather conditions meant the residents were snowed in for a further two nights.
Let's hope they didn't run out of Old Peculier.

Free at last


Interesting developments in Stockport recently where both the Railway on Wellington Road North and Little Jack Horner’s on Wellington Street (pictured) have been bought from pub companies by their sitting tenants, and the Magnet just down the road from the Railway has been sold to new free trade owners who have turned it into a multi-beer alehouse. This is a very positive development and I wish all three pubs every success. They will be freed from the dead hand of pub company control and be able to source the beers their customers really want at more reasonable prices.

But “going free” is a double-edged sword. You have cut your ties from the brewery or pub company, but that means you no longer have anyone looking over your shoulder to keep you on the path and tell you when you’re going wrong, and you no longer have any outside marketing support. You are truly on your own. For a keen, competent licensee, that should be seen as a challenge, but for some it can lead to complacency and slipping standards.

It is probably fair to say that, over my drinking career, many of the very best pubs I have visited have been genuine free houses, but so have some of the very worst.

One particular bugbear of mine is that, freed from any higher oversight, free trade pubs can all too easily end up with a plethora of incongruous, home-made signs both inside and out, which puts across a sloppy, unprofessional image.

Also, unless you are consciously going down the “alehouse” route, it is important to have a permanent real ale of ordinary bitter strength that is what many of your regular customers drink.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Faith in the future

Well, maybe, as suggested in the comments here, it was a bit of a limited poll, but it’s ended anyway. The question was “Will we see closed pubs reopening in significant numbers during 2010?” and the 48 responses were a fairly overwhelming:

Yes: 2 (4%)
No: 46 (96%)

Clearly even the most diehard pub enthusiasts see the tidal wave of closures of the past two and a half years as an irreversible process. The next year may see a few flashes in the doldrums as struggling pub company outlets are sold off to more enterprising free trade owners, but I honestly doubt whether we will see much respite in the overall pace of closures. It even seems to have got to Stockport at last, with the Olde Woolpack and Town Hall Tavern having been boarded up in recent weeks, and a number of town centre pubs giving the impression of being very shaky.

I have been accused of tailoring polls to the anti-smoking-ban lobby (which is NOT the same as "pro-smokers") but I assure you that the latest one on where you tend to drink was motivated by comments on Tandleman’s blog about too many beer bloggers being mainly at-home drinkers. “Most (but by no means all) bloggers are home drinkers and really need to get out more”, he says.

I also have to say that a few of the anti-ban comments that have appeared on this blog border on the ridiculous. If you genuinely feel that your enjoyment of pubs has been hugely eroded by the smoking ban and you rarely visit them any more, then fair enough, I respect and sympathise with that point of view. If you assert that you NEVER visit pubs because they now offer NOTHING for you then I have to conclude you are a bit of a ranting loon. One commenter said that after the ban he never visited pubs or restaurants at all. It must be a rather limited life if you have to eat all your meals at home.

New year, old lies

Well, I was going to have a go at this nonsense from the BBC, but The Filthy Smoker has got there first and done a far better job than I ever could.

It would be nice to think that some wag at the Beeb thought it would be richly ironic to put an anti-alcohol piece online at the one time when everybody is pissed, but a more plausible explanation is that the BBC wanted to start the decade as it means to go on - ie. with doom-mongering drivel from state-funded temperance dicks.
And what’s this about “a quarter of England's population consuming hazardous amounts”? You mean they sometimes have two pints at a sitting in the pub? It seems that nowadays anyone who consumes more that the official made-up alcohol “guidelines” is branded as a “hazardous drinker”.

9 in 10 pints don’t measure up

A recent Trading Standards investigation has shown that 9 out of 10 pints served in pubs fell short of an actual pint, with an average shortfall of 4% (costing you 10p on a £2.50 pint) and a maximum deficit of a whacking 11.8%.

Full measures has long been a key campaigning point for CAMRA, and it’s something I once felt very strongly about. However, I have to say CAMRA very much shot itself in the foot on the issue by actively encouraging pubs to swap oversize glasses for brim measure ones, when it happened to coincide with replacing electric metered dispense with handpumps, and nowadays I tend to be rather more relaxed about it.

So long as pubs don’t obviously take the piss, I’m quite happy with a tight, shallow head on a brim measure pint, and I suspect most drinkers feel the same. A brim glass fits more comfortably in the hand than an oversize one. If the measure is markedly short I will politely ask for a top-up, and struggle to remember when such a request was last refused. I also don’t detect any great concern amongst drinkers that they are being short-changed. There are far more important things to devote your energies to.

And, while if you are served short measure of petrol, it will hit you in the wallet later on, short measure beer will only leave you feeling marginally less groggy the next morning, unless it is so grossly short that you end up having an unplanned extra half to compensate. You also have to wonder whether the likes of Don Shenker are actually quite keen on short measures as it means drinkers end up inadvertently consuming less without really noticing it.

It does annoy me, though, when pubs present you with a pint where the head has fallen some way short of the top of a brim measure glass – that is piss-poor presentation. And it’s disappointing the number of CAMRA members I see blithely taking pints away from the bar with inch-deep heads – I spotted one at our local Pub of the Month presentation only last Tuesday (in a pub where a top-up would have been gladly given if asked for).