Is the sun over the yardarm yet?

I recently concluded a poll asking the question “What is the earliest you have had an alcoholic drink in a pub in the past month?”

There were a staggering 98 responses, which is by some way a record for this blog, although the current smoking policy poll looks on course to beat it. The results were as follows:

Before noon: 21 (22%)
Before 1 pm: 21 (22%)
Before 2 pm: 6 (6%)
Between 2 and 5 pm: 16 (16%)
Between 5 and 7 pm: 7 (7%)
Before 8 pm: 1 (1%)
Before 9 pm: 2 (2%)
After 9 pm: 2 (2%)
I haven't had a drink in a pub: 22 (22%)

It was really just meant as a general look at patterns of drinking, although the thought was at the back of my mind that it might reveal lunchtime drinking had become relatively uncommon. In fact, quite a high proportion of respondents said they had had a drink before 1 pm, with a gratifying 22% having started before noon.

In some quarters there seems to be a stigma against drinking before noon, and certainly far fewer pubs open before noon than used to, but Wetherspoon’s seem to do decent business out of it, and were not short of custom when, a few years ago, they brought the opening time of many of their pubs forward from 11 am to 10 am.

I haven’t actually had a drink before noon in the past month myself, although I have been waiting outside a pub door at noon on a Sunday.

There was also a surprisingly high number of people who said the earliest they had had a drink was between 2 and 5 pm . To me this is a rather unusual pattern of behaviour – does it perhaps reflect people knocking off work early on Fridays and heading straight to the pub?

It was also surprising, given that the main themes of this blog are pubs and beer, that the largest single group said they had not had a drink in a pub at all in the past month. Are they stay-at-home smokers, I wonder, or just people who come here out of a wider political interest but don’t actually go in pubs? That might be something worthy of a future poll.

Interestingly, although the phrase “is the sun over the yardarm?” is usually used nowadays to refer to early evening, its origins refer to the late morning, which is the sense in which I use it here.

Bar stool myths

Interesting item on the Independent website today: Ten bar stool myths about booze. Good to see they’ve got “lager is cheaper than water” at Number 9 and give a favourable mention to the Devil’s Kitchen. And Number 2 says that alcohol does not actually kill brain cells and, according to recent scientific research, moderate drinking can actually promote better thinking and reasoning skills.

Offers you can refuse

From time to time I get special offers of either points or money off certain products with the Tesco Clubcard. Generally these are for things I buy anyway, or which they want me to buy more of in their store rather than elsewhere. But when it comes to alcoholic drinks their logic seems to have gone seriously awry.

I sometimes pick up a bottle of lager – Bitburger, Budweiser Budvar, BrewDog 77 and the like – so what do I get with my receipt one day? 75p off a four-pack of Carlsberg. Needless to say that went in the bin (although if I actually knew Mr Cooking Lager personally he would have been welcome to it).

Likewise, I buy the occasional bottle of decent cider – today I got a bottle of Henney’s Reserve. And what do I get with my receipt – 25 points off a bottle of “WKD Core Apple Cider” (sic). That will end up in the same place.

Somehow I can’t see them offering buyers of fine wine vouchers for discounts on Liebfraumilch.

Stodgenessabounds

Depressing news from a recent survey that “pub diners still want classic, traditional pub dishes such as fish and chips or bangers and mash.”

Classic meals such as fish and chips, bangers or pie with mash, homemade lasagne and Sunday roasts remain firm favourites with over 90% of the group

For all the talk of a gastronomic revolution in pubs, in the vast majority you still find a menu majoring on dull, unimaginative, old-fashioned dishes. I know I’ve said this before, but instead of reaching out for all the exciting culinary opportunities that are available, “pub food” has become a narrowly circumscribed food style all of its own.

Swat these flies

I’ve never really understood the appeal of “perpendicular drinking”, although I suppose proximity to the source of supply is an attraction. When I go in a pub a prime consideration is finding somewhere comfortable to sit down.

But it gets beyond a joke when pubs have small serving counters that a couple of barflies can easily block completely. In places like that, surely a sign saying “please move away from the counter once you have been served” would not go amiss.

And it can’t be much fun standing there with other customers constantly jostling you and passing pints over your shoulder. If I had the physique of Wade Dooley I might be sorely tempted to “accidentally” spill a pint over the head of one of these obstructive twats. And then “suggest” he buy me another.

THE HIDDEN TRUTH ABOUT SMOKING

Author Rich White scrutinises the tobacco related health myth in his new book Smoke Screens, The Truth About Tobacco, which is released next week.

Rich's detailed research retraces the steps of the anti-smoking movement and analyses its often outrageous, and inflated, claims about tobacco.

The book looks at smoking related diseases and what actually causes them and how tobacco was exploited as a cause all because of the massive amount of funding being thrown in by Big Pharma to "prove" how dangerous it was.

What is often now referred to as the evil weed, had humble, medicinal roots, and was used by Native Americans to treat many ailments. Up until 30 years ago, it was recomended by GPs, and Rich's own granny was told to smoke when pregnant on doctor's orders. The accusation that tobacco kills millions, is explored, and how this simple plant became so controversial is explained.

"The sad truth is that because the mantra of smoking being harmful has been repeated so many times people now just accept it without question or research. However, misinformation or a lie told over and over is still wrong; never will mere repetition make something true," he said.

Rich, who gets no funding from any tobacco firm, or tobacco related industry, has shown that the time has come to find out just where the truth does lie. The fanatical whisper that became a roar because of personal prejudices and big money is about to be exposed.

http://www.smokescreens.org/

Museum preserved

It’s been mentioned elsewhere already, but it’s good news that the former Bass Museum (more recently the Coors Visitor Centre) has been saved and is to reopen next year. Roger Protz in typical Old Socialist style paints this as a triumph of the grassroots over an evil giant corporation, but in reality I suspect this was the kind of outcome Coors were always looking for.

I remember visiting the Bass Museum in 1984 and being impressed by what a fascinating place it was, although perhaps rather modest in scale. I enjoyed a pint of some specially brewed ale (can’t recall what) in the museum bar too. It also struck me that Burton-on-Trent was a rather odd place – a sprawling, amorphous town where it was hard to define an obvious centre, and where the massive Bass and Ind Coope breweries occupied extensive sites right in the middle of the urban area.

Hopefully the new museum will retain a foundation in serious scholarship and not go too far down the “interactive visitor experience” path, which can all too easily be a recipe for disaster. The precedent of the now-defunct Tetley’s Brewery Wharf in Leeds is not too good. And, given the current climate, the operators will have to tread very carefully if they seek to tailor any of their displays to children.

BIGOTRY ENCOURAGED IN 21st CENTURY WEST

I hope to be able to get back to more regular blogging soon. Meanwhile, words can barely express my depression at this http://www.freedom2choose.info/news_viewer.php?id=1040

How can such discrimination happen when we have spent decades moving on from just this kind of bigotry? Why can modern society not recognise what is happening and how far smoking propaganda and the persecution of smokers is going? Why do they not see that their lifestyle enjoyment could next be under attack and they will be villified and excluded if they do not live their lives as the Govt tells them?

I am too sad for words.

Meanwhile, this piece over on Forces International has a very good explanation of the rod used by the state to denormalise smokers. http://www.forces.org/Forces_Articles/article_viewer.php?id=671

I hope to be able to get some more blogging done later today. I have quite a lot to report.

An old soldier speaks

This letter from a resident of Thame in Oxfordshire really sums up what an atrocity the smoking ban has proved to be:

The result of that has been the collapse of social networks, of organic resorts of camaraderie among some people, often the old and frail. Look at some of the sites on the Net devoted to campaigning for an amendment of the smoking law and read of the sadness and bitterness, not only among pub regulars but among elderly and isolated folk, whose one day out was a visit to a Bingo hall, now closed - because of the ban...

After the ban, however, despite being a non smoker, I felt no desire to spend money in sterile, half-empty pubs out of which the heart and social stuffing had been kicked - and by, of all groups, the party which represents the working class. I suspect that that alone will have done for much of Gordon Brown's vote.

The quality lottery

From time to time in the beer blogosphere, the argument crops up that, as cask beer is a high-quality craft product, it should be able to command a price premium over mass-market kegs and lagers. That has a lot to commend it – and indeed in the premium bottled beer sector it is already the case. But, in terms of draught beer in the pub, there is a big problem – as cask beer is a natural product, and dependent on care in the pub cellar, it is inevitably subject to variations in quality.

Our local branch of CAMRA organises monthly Friday evening pub crawls – known as “Staggers” – around various parts of the area. Last month we covered the Stockport Market Place area – and I had my arm twisted to do the write-up for the local magazine Opening Times. We went in eight different pubs – oh, I know, a disgusting binge, even if you only drank a half in each one. Of these, in three the beer was very good, and fully up to the standard you would expect from pubs in the Good Beer Guide. In three more, it was pretty decent, and you wouldn’t have minded being stranded in there all night. But in two pubs, the beer was distinctly lacklustre and disappointing, warm and/or tired. That included the local Wetherspoon’s.

It was an enjoyable evening, and on such an occasion you expect to take the rough with the smooth. It all adds to the interest of life. Had I specifically been going out for a drink, I would probably have made a beeline for one of the three “good” pubs where I would have felt confident in getting a top-class pint. But if my only drink of the evening had been in one of the two pubs where the beer was indifferent, I really wouldn’t have been happy with paying a price premium. Unless you can reliably deliver top-notch quality, you can’t get away with charging over the odds.

Interestingly, only one of the three “good” pubs – the superlative Arden Arms – is in the current Good Beer Guide, although I think recent licensee changes debar the other two. And one of the “poor” pubs is in the Guide too. The other two “good” pubs – as they deserve the accolade – were the Boar’s Head (Sam Smiths) and the Bull’s Head (Robinsons).

I suspect if you spent the evening drinking your way along the pumps in a multi-beer pub, you would have a similar experience.

The Ban and me

The smoking ban was what prompted the creation of this blog in the first place and, while the blog isn’t solely about the ban, it remains one of its key themes. We all know what it has done to the pub trade, but it’s an interesting question how it has affected me personally.

Now, I am a non-smoker of many years’ standing, something which one or two commentators on this blog have failed to appreciate in the past. In a restaurant, offered the choice, I would have tended to go for the non-smoking section (assuming I had no smoking companions with me) but I was never all that bothered about smoke in pubs and in general preferred to share the crack with the smokers rather than sitting in splendid isolation in the non-smoking room.

I do make a patchy effort to remain within shouting distance of the official guidelines on alcohol consumption, so my life is not one long round of pub crawls. I am aware of a considerable number of pubs that have closed since July 2007, but there is only one that I used to regularly visit – the Railway at Heatley near Lymm, shown in the picture. Ironically, this had for a number of years banned smoking in the main bar area. As always, the story isn’t entirely straightforward, but this was a traditional drink and chat pub with a food sideline, in an area where most other pubs had a heavy emphasis on dining. It was thus the type of pub that would be much more at risk from the ban and so it has proved. It closed its doors in the Autumn of 2007 and has been up for sale with Fleurets ever since. In the meantime, the building has steadily deteriorated. When the Railway opens its doors again as a mainstream pub then, and only then, will I be convinced that the pub trade is on the rebound.

But the real difference is that the atmosphere has gone – both literally and figuratively – from large numbers of pubs, even the ones that do well enough from the food trade. There used to be a scattering of customers throughout the day who just popped in for a drink or two and a chat. A high proportion of them seemed to be smokers, or in groups including smokers, as pub-type people always were much more likely to be smokers than the average of the population. Now, a lot of them have disappeared, and those who remain often seem a touch lost and disoriented, especially when miserably trudging outside for a fag. It is as if people are unthinkingly going through the motions of their old routines even when the significance has been stripped away. The role of pubs as a social centre has greatly diminished.

As an example, there’s one pub I regularly visit on the fringe of the urban area. There used to be a group of customers who came in who were very much country folk rather than townies. They brought dogs and (well behaved) kids with them, and most of the adults were smokers. They made a distinctive contribution to the ambience of the place – but now, they no longer visit at all. Nobody has stepped into the breach to take their place. The pub still seems to do OK, but its social mix is less rich than it once was. Incidentally, this pub had banned smoking in about 75% of its public area some time before the ban came in, a solution that all its customers seemed happy with.

And, recently, I called in a pub in rural Staffordshire. The food operation on the lounge side seemed to be ticking over, but it also had an extensive, well-appointed public bar with a pool table. There was not a single person in it – something that I’m sure would not have been the case before July 2007. Even in Stockport town centre, many of the pubs outside the ranks of the usual flagships are very quiet in the evenings in a way they never used to be.

Much of the old welcoming, convivial atmosphere has departed from pubs forever, and despite one or two commentators detecting a few green shoots I am convinced there is much more pain to come. So many pubs now have a kind of sad, empty feeling about them. It will probably be said in the future that the smoking ban achieved what the Kaiser, Lloyd George and Hitler all failed to do and killed off the British pub as it once was understood.

Ostentatious non-drinking

A growing phenomenon nowadays is that of the “ostentatious non-drinker” who, in a public setting, makes a point of ordering soft drinks and being seen to do so, hoping to make those degenerates who do have a glass of beer or wine feel vaguely guilty. However, very often he or she is someone who is known to like jugging it back in private.

This can’t do anything to help the pub trade, and I’m convinced a major factor behind it – and the overall movement away from pub to at-home drinking – is the ever-increasing official demonisation of alcohol.

People may not be drinking less in total, but they are much more reluctant to let their image slip by being seen drinking in public, so they compensate by doing it at home where there is nobody around apart maybe from family members to disapprove. Drinking should be a sociable activity, but making people feel bad about it only serves to encourage furtive, solitary tippling.

A rosy view

I can’t help thinking that Chris Maclean is looking at the pub trade through rose-tinted spectacles when he says he thinks the worst is now over and there are great opportunities out there. He is entirely right, of course, about the vicious circle of decline – falling trade leading to shorter opening hours, reduced facilities and lower standards of service and cleanliness. But putting all the lights on, turning the heating up, smiling broadly and organising a series of special events will do nothing to revitalise business if the trade isn’t there, and may well look more like flogging a dead horse.

I see no evidence that the pub trade is poised to roar back into life once the economy starts to improve. On the contrary, I see large numbers of once-thriving pubs that are virtually empty most of the time, look increasingly tired and down-at-heel and seem to be hanging on by their fingernails. If anything, the recovery might hasten their demise by making redevelopment into something else more financially attractive. Exactly where are all these new customers going to come from, when there’s been no evidence of them over the past two-and-a-half years? There are vast numbers of pubs for sale or to let on all the estate agents’ websites – there are two in a half-mile stretch on my journey to work – but nobody seems to be biting.

There will be a lot more pain before we hit the floor – I can easily see eight to ten thousand more pubs going – and few of those that remain will bear much resemblance to a pub as understood in the Seventies and Eighties. Of course the pub-haters will see that as a good thing, “But they serve ciabattas and have comfy sofas!” Umm, precisely.

This comment from Pete Robinson is spot-on:

I do take issue with talk of ‘bad pubs’ because there's no such thing IMHO. Grotty back street boozers are, or were, a reality and I deeply grieve their passing. They were as vital a part of our British pub culture as the very finest establishments. Many people loved their pure, unashamed character even if it was served in a dirty glass. They survived two world wars and a century of recessions only to be wiped out by the nannying political correctness of people who would never be seen dead in such places.

In reality, the decline of the pub trade is nothing to do with bad pubs or bad licensees. It might be possible to revive one or two failing pubs with a lot of care and attention, but all that would do would be to leach trade away from other pubs. It would do nothing to increase the overall demand for pubs.

The world turned upside down

There’s an interesting observation here from Frank Davis on how pubs are increasingly becoming like private homes, and private homes increasingly like pubs:

…the pubs which were once refuges from family life will have become no different from family homes, with toys strewn on the floor, children running round, nappies being changed, and old grannies being helped to the door on their walking frames. The pubs will have metamorphosed into family houses. And private houses will turn into pubs.

For the exiled smokers and drinkers have already started meeting up some place or other, often their own homes, bringing their own beer and whisky, sitting around makeshift tables smoking and drinking and belching and swearing. And telling blue jokes. And singing bawdy songs. No children will be allowed. Women will only be tolerated if they can drink a man under the table. If there are tables.

Beer and pub myths

This post by Pete Brown and my response to it led me to think about the pervasive but often largely groundless myths that have grown up about pubs and beer over the years. So here’s a few, offered without comment (although some of these are themes that I have addressed here in the past):

• Pubs used to be male-only bastions where you would scarcely ever see women
  
• Before the breathalyser, a substantial proportion of male drivers would regularly drive home drunk
  
• Before the smoking ban, there were virtually no non-smoking areas in pubs
  
• In the early Seventies, there was very little cask beer available in the UK
  
• CAMRA brought about a dramatic increase in real ale sales
  
• In the past fifteen or twenty years there has been a revolution in the quality and availability of food in pubs
  
• “24-hour drinking” is now widespread in Britain
  
• Mainstream beers in the 1970s were much weaker than they are now

Another one, which has been disproved now, but was surprisingly prevalent maybe fifteen years ago, is that alcohol consumption had considerably declined and the British were a much more sober people than they used to be.

Are there any other misguided ideas knocking around?

ERM ... ACTUALLY ...

I think, Mr White, that there is only one vermin, blood-sucking parasite bleeding this country's subjects dry and it's called the current Labour Govt.

So do us all favour, leave the Queen alone. She's a nice old dear and I, for one, would hate if she wasn't here and we ended up with President Brown - or God help us president Cameron.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20091117/tuk-labour-candidate-s-attack-on-queen-6323e80.html

It's such a shame that jumped up prats full of their own self-importance, and with a chip as huge as the ugly scars NuLab has carved through Britain, could even be considered as a PPC. It just goes to show that they really are scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to political talent.

1984 ARRIVES.

Just as quick reminder - Orwell's classic 1984 was intended as a warning not a template Mr Straw.

Watch out for a thought crime law coming to a town near you ...

http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=&sc2=news&sc3=&id=98998

Tarnished Spoons

Not quite sure what prompted it, but during the past week I’ve been running a poll on people’s opinions of Wetherspoons. And it turns out you don’t think much of them at all! There were 43 responses, broken down as follows:

Love them: 2 (5%)
Quite like them: 6 (14%)
They’re OK: 15 (35%)
Not keen: 7 (16%)
Loathe them: 13 (30%)

The excess of “loathers” above “lovers” is very marked.

I have to say I am in two minds here. Wetherspoons have certainly revolutionised the urban pub trade and exposed the poor service and limited offer that once were par for the course. They are a well-run and highly profitable company. And Tim Martin is one of the few industry leaders who is willing to question the prevailing anti-drink orthodoxy.

But, on the other hand, on a personal level I seldom have much enthusiasm about visiting one of their outlets. They tend to be characterless, barn-like establishments with a shortage of both natural light and comfortable bench-type seating. Their regular beers are dull, and whether you find anything interesting on the guest list can be very hit and miss. They seem to have a knack of extracting the character from even apparently well-kept brews. Their food is unimaginative, mass-market, microwaved stuff done down to a price, and on a few recent experiences hasn’t even been decently presented (for example, I had a distinctly lukewarm meal last month). Their change of policy to admit children when dining has led to many of their pubs being dominated by the wails of infants at lunchtimes – they have become the chav mothers’ canteen.

And, as I posted earlier this year, while obviously they are fully entitled only to select the sites they believe will suit their formula, they refuse to venture out of their town-centre comfort zone and expose themselves to wider competition.

So it was a “not keen” from me. I’ll use them, especially if staying away from home, but if a Wetherspoon’s really is the best pub in a town, or even worthy of inclusion in the Good Beer Guide, then choice is pretty thin in that part of the world.

Nutts and yet more Nutts

There are two excellent pieces by Brendan O’Neill in this week’s Sp!ked about the egregious Professor David Nutt:

David Nutt is not the new Galileo

The curious Cult of Nutt, backed by both dopeheads and scientists, is actually denigrating scientific truth.

Nutts to these anti-alcohol ‘experts’

Last night’s David Nutt debate confirmed that cannabis is now promoted as a means of pacifying young, drunk ruffians.

The latter includes:

The event provided an insight into what is driving the pro-dope movement today, that strange mix of scientists and politicians (who are at least sympathetic to cannabis) and social workers and students (who are champions of it): it is not freedom, or even hedonism, but Booze Prohibitionism. They promote cannabis as a way of denigrating alcohol. Professor Nutt explicitly said that the government’s attacks on cannabis are a ‘distraction from getting alcohol misuse under control’. Alcohol should also be part of the Misuse of Drugs Act, he said, since it is the ‘most damaging drug’ for young people in particular.

Why anyone claiming to be a defender of pubs and beer should give a second’s consideration to the views of this odious man completely eludes me.

DAMN IGNORANT!

I'm fuming and bloody frustrated at the sheer lack of manners employed by marketing companies!

I just sat down to start rewriting chapter one of my crime novel for workshopping at my next University session when the phone rang.

*Sigh*, picked it up. There was a recorded message at the other end trying to sell me something to do with credit cards.

This type of approach absolutely infuriates me. It is rude because if they haven't even got the decency to pick up the phone personally and try and sell me something, then why on earth would I want to buy it?

I have complained about this to BT, my phone provider, and its response is basically : "Tough. There's nothing we can do about it!"

I did listen to the message and waited for the number I had to press to speak to a real person. When someone, who sounded like they he was calling from an Indian call centre, spoke I let him have both barrels.

I did ask for my details to be deleted from whatever database his company stores them on but that won't happen because I have no choice but to put up with it. It would be called harassment if it was an individual person making regular unwanted calls but as I suspect that my details have been sold by the Govt from it's No 10 Petition site, I imagine it is pefectly legal to drive me mad!

NHS WON'T TREAT SMOKERS

Further to my post below, it would seem that in reality, this is how the NHS treats smokers.

Thanks to Forces International for the tip.

http://forces.org/News_Portal/news_viewer.php?id=2027

BRITISH MINORITY GROUP COMPLAINS AT GRAPHIC VIOLENCE

Many of you have probably heard by now through the Freedom2Choose blog that a visit to complain about the Birmingham North and East PCT's graphically violent video which shows a smoker getting beaten to death is to be removed from the web.

I was so outraged when I first saw the video that I complained. The background to why and how it was made, and the wider campiagn that it was part of, was explained but I didn't feel that it justified what I saw as a very irresponsible video which I honestly believe could incite violence against smokers.

Dave Atherton at Freedom2Choose agreed to come with. He is someone very useful to have on side because of the meticulous research he has done on the issue of smoking and health and the talent he has for quoting statistics when it matters.

Also present to add his voice to the complaint was Dudley Councillor Malcolm Davis (pictured above) . It was very important that the complaint had some kind of political punch and a local aspect to it so the BEN PCT couldn't wriggle out of it by saying it wasn't meant to be seen by a wider audience, which they did.

It is important to add that UKIP was the ONLY party to lend this support. Others chose not to. If I could have mustered representatives from ALL political parties that would have been great but the others were not interested.

Malcolm, a non-smoker, was appalled by the video which he could not access on his council computer because it was blocked as having "unsuitable content" because of the graphic violence. When he managed to see it via a friend's computer, his resposne was "revolting."

The very nice ladies we saw at the PCT from the Communications, complaints, performance and organisational development, and health improvement departments, explained that there was no malice intended by the campaign which was aimed specifically at white males aged between 35 and 55 from their area. They also claim that "hardened" smokers were used as a focus group which approved the video.

I found that hard to believe and I was particulalry astounded when the ladies quoted the figure of 70% of smokers say they want to quit and the PCT has a duty to help them.

I pointed out that I know of many smokers who I chat to outside of public places, and many I interact with on pro-choice forums, who would disagree with the 70% figure. The ladies said I probably talk to the 30% who don't want to quit. It seems no-one has a "duty" to help them and they can be justifiably ignored.

When I pointed out that I believe the NHS is the enemy of the smoker, and even if I was dying from a heart attack I wouldn't go to hosiptal because of the way we are treated, I was told that hospitals would care for smokers in the same dignified way as non-smokers. I asked if they would have a campaign pointing that out to those smokers who don't want to quit and the answer was no. Of course not. I was therefore left with the assumption that 30% of smokers in this country don't matter to anyone at all, except, it would seem, UKIP.

The ladies disupted that smokers were stigmatised until Dave and I pointed out that being excluded from every public place in Britian was certainly evidence of such stigmatisation.

We also had a general discussion about NRT, and other quit smoking methods that were far more effective than those offered by the NHS. It was pointed out that neither the NHS, and their pharmacuetical sponsors, or the Tobacco companies could claim moral high ground as both compete to provide smokers with nicotine and money - billions of it - was the motivating factor.

I also informed the ladies of violent incidents and deaths by smoking ban that that have occurred since July 2007 between smokers and anti-smokers including those in the Uk of a father who killed his wife because she wouldn't give up smoking and his children so that they could be with her, and the father who beat his 12 year-old son for smoking.

Dave pointed out that those who hate smokers would see the video as justification to attack because they wouldn't see the analogy that was intended.

The video cost about £10,000 to make. Coun Davis said the money would have been better used in direct patient care than to propagate violence against a minority group.

The PCT tried to say it couldn't remove the video. I said if it wasn't removed then my complaint would be taken to the Ombudsman. Dave pointed out that Jane De Ville Almond, the anti-smoking nurse who called for smokers to be left to die if they didn't give up, had a video of her bigoted views removed by claiming copywright and the PCT could do the same.

They said they would remove it in two weeks when the campaign ends. I said that was too long and I would like to see it gone immediately. The PCT said they would review it and put in writing their decision. That hasn't come through yet but as F2C has sent out a press release, and blogged about it, I thought I should too - although I would have rather waited for that confirmation to come through first.

One final point of note is that the PCT said it hadn't received any other complaints. I know that at least one was sent through and several others have been received by F2C.

This is yet another victory for the pro-choice movment and smokers who have had enough and are not prepared to sit back and allow such violent and untrue propaganda against them to continue.

What’s brewing today?

I see our friends at BrewDog have been digging up a few bones again by claiming that CAMRA has been a major obstacle to innovation in the brewing industry. Now, I know what sort of thing they were getting at, but that set me to thinking there are quite a variety of different ways in which you can be innovative in brewing.

In most industries, the major form of innovation comes with small, incremental improvements to the product. This is especially true of technological products, but its application to brewing is fairly limited. If you have an established beer, all you can do is to make minor tweaks to the recipe which may or may meet with the approval of consumers. And if you try to tailor your beer to “customer preferences”, the odds are that over time you will just make it more bland.

Then you can have improvements to the production process, which typically will mainly benefit the brewer, although this may filter through to the consumer in the form of lower prices. I’m sure the vast majority of brewers of all sizes are constantly looking at ways to achieve the same results while using less energy, but many process innovations such as continuous fermentation, high-gravity brewing and changing the mix of ingredients may be of very dubious benefit to the drinker.

A third area of innovation is not in the product itself, but in its presentation. This could encompass such things as electric beer dispense, kegging, nitrokeg, in-can devices and distinctive branded glasses.

And then there are innovations that completely change the nature of the mainstream – the replacement over a period of not much more than ten years of bitter by lager as the standard beer in the UK being a classic example.

But of course none of this is what BrewDog are referring to – they are talking about brewing beers in different styles and using different ingredients. However, you have to be careful here. As this post by Tandleman points out, British beer drinkers, even cask drinkers, are generally a pretty conservative lot, and brewers neglect the mainstream at their peril. You can’t see Timothy Taylors innovating Landlord into something completely different.

Typically a brewer will have a mainstream range, may produce a variety of more adventurous specials that they know will be time-limited, and may occasionally turn these into permanent beers if they prove sufficiently popular. But they must always walk a tightrope between keeping their regular customers satisfied and doing enough to maintain the interest of the enthusiasts.

And you have to be careful that you don’t end up simply introducing new ingredients for the sake of it – the market for beers flavoured with lychees or larks’ vomit is always going to be somewhat limited. One man’s bold innovation is another man’s pointless gimmick.

To a limited extent it may be true that CAMRA has held innovation back by the “four legs good, two legs bad” attitude still prevailing in many quarters of the organisation that dismisses anything not cask- or bottle-conditioned as “chemical fizz” – but that is really only deterring innovation in presentation, not in style.

But, in reality, there is a huge amount of innovation going on. Any visit to a major beer festival will reveal a wide range of beers with unusual varieties of malt and hops, unconventional ingredients, and pushing stylistic boundaries. Over the past few years, the growth in true, strong, heavily-hopped IPAs and the expansion of golden ales to the extent that they are threatening to eclipse the traditional copper-coloured bitters show very clearly that the market is far from moribund.

At the end of the day, surely the fact that BrewDog are thriving proves that innovation is in fact alive and well in the British beer market.

Safer alcohol on the way?

There’s a bizarre story in today’s Sun that Professor David Nutt, the government’s sacked drugs adviser, is proposing the introduction of a form of synthetic alcohol that he claims will eliminate many of our alcohol problems.

WE have been poisoning ourselves for 2,000 years. Modern science can now provide a safer way for us to have fun.

I am working on a prototype of a synthetic alcohol. We can make someone feel pleasantly inebriated then reverse it.

We have a partial alternative tested on volunteers. With Government backing, the first ever synthetic alcohol could be available in three to five years.

The potential for this is enormous. It could slash Britain's binge drinking epidemic, which currently costs the NHS £3billion a year, and reduce the number of deaths from alcohol poisoning.

However, this completely misses the point. Alcoholic drinks have been enjoyed for thousands of years – they are part of our history and culture. Even when produced on an industrial scale, they are essentially made from natural ingredients rather than being synthesised in a laboratory.

It often seems to be believed by members of the drug lobby that people only, or primarily, drink alcohol to get drunk, whereas nothing could be further from the truth. People consume alcoholic drinks, even the bog-standard ones, because they like the taste. Beer and cider in particular can be extremely refreshing, while whisky may raise your spirits on a chilly day. And wine in particular, but beer and cider too, can be an excellent complement to food.

It’s also probably true to say that, on a large majority of occasions when people drink alcohol, they experience nothing more than a slight glow. Of course people are not indifferent to the effect of alcohol, but it is not consumed solely for the effect in the way that cannabis, ecstasy, cocaine and LSD are.

I would have zero interest in a pill that somehow simulated the effects of alcohol, and I doubt whether many other responsible drinkers who enjoy their beer, wine or spirits would either. Yes, in a sense, alcohol is a drug, but it is far more than just another drug – this plan would reduce it to that status.

NO TO THE DEATH PENALTY

Last night's drama, The Execution of Gary Glitter, was very thought provoking and confimed in my mind all the reasons why I am against the reintroduction of the death penalty.

What I am about to say may make me most unpopular but as someone who encountered a similar character as a child, I feel qualified to say what I think.

As horrible as child sexual abuse is, does it really justify the barbaric execution of a person by the state? I don't believe it does. If I was a child who suffered at the hands of a man like this, I would never recover from the experience if I knew he had been murdered because of what he did to me. As a parent, I'd like to think I'd feel the same.

If, however, my child was murdered, or someone close to me was murdered, then I still could not support the death penalty for the person who committed this most henious of crimes.

Murder is wrong. It doesn't make it right because the state does it. It is about revenge and not about justice. An eye for an eye is Old Testament and it has no place in a modern society.

That said, I do think things are well out of balance at present. When the death penalty was abolished, those against its abolition were appeased by the introduction of a life sentence in prison. That is what has gone wrong. People who commit murder today can expect to serve about 10 - 12 years in comfort at the expense of the state. Life in prison should mean one's whole life in prison until death without any chance of parole and every day should be as awful as it can be so that the offender has long, hard days, for the rest of their life, to reflect on the life they stole. Only then will people begin to stop and think before killing other human beings. The murder rate is high because there is currently NO deterrent.

Before the EU stuck it's nose into our criminal justice system, we also had the age of responsibility which, if I recall correctly, was 10 years old. After the Jamie Bulger killing, the boys who murdered him were given far more sympathy than the parents of that poor child. They now have freedom and new identities. That was a difficult case but on balance, children especially must know that there is a line in the sand that cannot ever be crossed and in doing so, one's life and freedom is forfeited to a life in prison.

I don't know how the Bulger family feels about the death penalty but if it had been my child, I would want a wretched prison system and for those two boys to live a very, very, long time knowing that they would suffer every single day.

Finally, when we had the death penalty too many innocent people were murdered by the state. Even though today we have better detection methods and DNA, I would still say that science is not infallable and 10 deserved deaths would not justify one innocent life lost.

YOU TELL 'EM CLARKSON

I'm loving this

http://votresistance.blogspot.com/2009/11/clarkson-on-mandy.html

WELCOME TO THE COMMUNIST STATE

How much worse can things get!

Whoever said we lived in a free country didn't reckon on Britons ever getting the tyrannical Government that we have now.

My only question is will anything change after the next election when we have finally shown the NuLabour dictatorship the door?

I am so cynical, that I very much doubt it - unless UKIP win, of course!

Read it and fear : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/6534319/State-to-spy-on-every-phone-call-email-and-web-search.html

Challenging our rights

I recently saw a young woman ahead of me at the checkout queue in my local supermarket get ID’d for alcohol sales. She had a somewhat “studenty” appearance, but to my mind looked about 24. There was no way on earth she was under 18. It turned out she was 27. She took it in her stride, and indeed might even have felt a little flattered at being thought under 25. But this really underlined how obnoxious this particular policy is. The legal age for alcohol sales is 18, and I have no problem with people who are, or who genuinely appear to be, under 18 being asked for ID. For the avoidance of doubt, I can, I suppose, see the point of “Challenge 21”. But extending the age to 25 is utterly ludicrous. And it must really hack people off to be effectively accused of a crime every time they go to buy alcohol. The basic principle of law in this country always used to be “innocent unless proven guilty” – Challenge 25 turns this on its head. Fortunately as an ancient, over-50 bastard I don’t have this problem.

Where you buy booze

I recently concluded a poll with the question: “Where do you buy off-trade alcohol? (select all that apply)” There were 46 responses, broken down as follows:

Supermarket: 41 (89%)
Traditional off-licence: 10 (21%)
Discount off-licence: 5 (10%)
Specialist off-licence: 21 (45%)
Corner shop: 14 (30%)
Pub off-sales: 2 (4%)
Mail order/internet: 9 (19%)

This clearly underlines the dominance the supermarkets have achieved in the market. Given that quite a few beer enthusiasts read this blog, it’s not entirely surprising to see specialist off-licences come second. But the fact that corner shops come out ahead of traditional off-licences illustrates the problems that sector has been experiencing, recently leading to Thresher going into administration.

As an aside, earlier this evening I visited a specialist off-licence and bought six bottles of beer, three German, three British, at an average price per unit of 71.3p. Don Shenker would be proud of me!

Cuckoo in the nest?

I was a bit taken aback to find out that this blog had reached the giddy heights of #4 in Wikio’s ranking of the top British Wine and Beer blogs. That’s quite an achievement for something that was created purely to get things off my chest, took the best part of a year to receive its first comment and another six months to get any significant attention.

I can’t help feeling like a bit of a cuckoo in the nest, as this blog is really more about the politics of beer and pubs, and the general erosion of lifestyle freedom, than about beer and pubs themselves. However, I suppose straddling the boundaries like that is what gets attention from various parts of the blogosphere and thus boosts the ranking.

And, sadly, the very first post about Bansturbation has set the tone for all the dismal developments of the past two-and-a-bit years. Reading back over the first set of posts, though, it does seem that, the occasional excursion aside, I did find my distinctive voice from the start.

LORD PEARSON'S LEADERSHIP BID

This is the bloke that I've voted for as the new leader of UKIP. http://www.lordpearsonofrannoch.co.uk/my_video.html

It's a shame that such a talented orator and passionate politician as Nigel Farage has stepped down but it isn't as if he's leaving the party and while he's concentrating on getting that berk Bercow out of Buckinghamshire, the person eventually elected as the new UKIP leader can get on with supporting and rallying the troops who will be standing for seats across the country.

Lord Pearson hopes for a hung parliament after the election. That would be preferable to the painful three party alliance currently ruling the Westminster Roost, but I would still like to see UKIP win, of course, or in opposition. It's about time we had a decent Govt, and just as important is a scrutinising and critical opposition. UKIP deserves a chance and so do those voters who put their faith in the party from sheer desperation at the system. They have had enough of those quangos, organsations, and financial institutions that appear to have a vested interest in Britain's destruction.

Other candidates who are standing for leader are Nikki Sinclaire, Gerard Batten, Mike Nattrass, and Alan Wood. They're all good candidates so it matters not to me who ultimately gets the unpaid job. They have all pledged suport to whoever does become the next leader of an exciting new grass roots party ... er.... what was that song doing the rounds in 1997 ... things can only get....eh?

THEY DON'T LIKE OLD HOLBORN UP 'EM....

This is worth a read. http://bastardoldholborn.blogspot.com/2009/11/hogwarts.html

Yet another event missed because of being ill with flu. Gutted, although not as much as missing grand daughter No 2's Baptism.

I hope Old Holborn repeats his autumn stroll next year on November 5 because I'd really like to go along, join him, and watch our elected representatives in action although by all accounts, it's a terrifying prospect to see so much public money wasted by so many on so few.

Smoke signals from Ireland

If you thought the worst was over for the British pub trade, that we had gone through a necessary period of “right-sizing” and could now look forward to a successful future, then think again. As Pete Robinson points out here, the experience of Ireland following their smoking ban suggests there is still an awful lot of pain to come. He predicted that, over five years, the ban would lead to a loss of 25% of the pub stock, and that looks as though it is coming true.

Yes, the pub trade in England and Wales is not exactly the same as that in Ireland, but even so the indications are that the 4,500 pubs already lost will be at least doubled over the next three years. It is very obvious that there are plenty of pubs that are still open but are doing a very thin trade and hanging on by their fingertips. Even on Friday nights you can now find near-empty pubs that once were full. As one comment says:

I remember having to push hard on the doors just to get into pubs when unemployment reached just over three million (over 10% of the population). Something tells me that finding somewhere to sit in pubs won’t be a problem in the current period of unemployment.

And it’s not even as if the ban has led to a reduction in smoking rates, with the proportion of smokers in Ireland rising from 27% to 33%. What a spectacular own goal for public health policy! It seems that smoking bans are far better at closing pubs than stopping people smoking.

LOUTH AND HORNCASTLE CAMPAIGN KICKS OFF

I thought it was probably about time that I announced my intention to officially enter politics and stand as a Parliamentary Party Candidate. I am one of UKIP's 500 that it is putting up to fight the next general election. Ideally, I wanted to stand in my own city, Lincoln, but we have an excellent candidate here, Nick Smith, who is known locally and I so chose Louth and Horncastle, an area I know quite well having covered the magistrates court there for some years before it closed. My other half's family on his mother's side also originates from Horncastle and they still have strong ties there.

Our day in Louth's Market Square was to spread the word about voting choice, promote UKIP and it's policies and to introduce me to any local people who happened by our stall and wanted to stop for a political chat.

There were many disaffected old Labour supporters and traditional Tory supporters all looking at where they could put their vote next time having vowed never to vote for their parties again. The blanket smoking ban, my own personal bug-bear, came up twice. During a discussion of why 52 pubs are closing nationally every week, one lady said she liked the ban. However, after I explained that choice would not affect people who don't like smoke, it would just enable those smoker pubs - the ones currently dying in their droves - to contnue to trade as they had always had done, she agreed that it wasn't really a big issue for her.

A couple later approached. The man only wanted to know what my view was on the ban. I took a deep breath and let him have it. His face lit up, and he said I'd get his vote. He went further and signed the UKIP call for a referendum which is now about our membership of the EU and not the Lisbon Treaty which is past all hope. I suspected that the man was a pro-choicer as he felt so strongly against the ban but he wasn't. He'd never heard of F2C, Forest, or any group currently working to fight for choice and democracy on the smoking issue. I found that encouraging. I gave him some links in case he wanted to get involved or know more.

His partner was a teacher. She was fed up with the education system which she says currently encourages disrespect for both teachers and parents. We both agreed the National Curriculum was at fault for the state of today's youth. Kids are not uniformed beings who all fit into neat little boxes of the same size. Some of them are square pegs trying to fit into round holes and when they don't, the system chucks them out, they end up feral and before long causing trouble on the streets. She pledged support for UKIP when I told her that the party supported individuality in education and would make home education easier for those parents who wanted to choose it.

I was also asked about my view of the postal stike. Deep breath again as I explained as an old labour supporter, I would always take the side of the working man or woman if their cause was just. The man who asked promply signed the UKIP pledge and so I assume I gave the right answer.

One sight deeply distrubed me. Standing just a few feet away, outside a shop, were three childen. The eldest was about 14. The other two boys about 8 and 10. They were all smoking roll-ups with filters in. People stood looking in amazement and I fear the boys lapped up the attention. Two old ladies remonstrated with them but this had no effect. The women moved on. I couldn't help myself but approach for a word.

I told the boys the reality of smoking. I said I'd been a child smoker and that all I'd had from a lifetime of smoking was grief. I said smokers were excluded from every public place since the smoking ban - er... what smoking ban, they, said while furtively looking around in case PC Plod was about to cart them away - an explanation rather went over their heads so I tried a different approach.

I told them that smokers were despised so much that if they were still smoking at my age, the people now standing across the street watching them, would one day be throwing rocks at eggs at them for daring to light up in public. Again, it went over their heads and they weren't really interested. I could have given them the health spiel but then the old ladies did that and I'm sure that gets rammed down their throats as much as anyone else.

When I wrote my piece Life and Times of a Dedicated Smoker, I said that some children do smoke whether we like it or not. A tobacco display ban, the abolition of vending machines, and the prospect of plain packaging will do nothing to stop them. I sense a "get the parents" law being made any time soon. Certainly, I think, that if those boys had been smoking in Lincoln, which is littered with police on every street corner, then they would have been picked up, taken home, and criminal prosecutions either for the boy who gave the younger ones a cigarette, or the parents who failed to stop them smoking, would have followed.

Louth and Horncastle is a safe Tory seat and was formerly held by Jeffrey Archer. It's current MP is Sir Peter Tapsell and I'm told that I don't have much chance of winning but it's fight that I'm thoroughly going to enjoy.

THE DRAMA QUEEN LIVES

If there is one thing I'm not good at, it's being ill. I moan, complain, tell everyone I'm near death, and then after a few days when life returns to normal, I say the illness hardly bothered me at all.

It started last Saturday morning when I woke up with my head in a flu cloud. I felt awful but hoped that I'd be able to shake it off enough to make grand daughter No 2's baptism the next day. I did all the right things - I had a hot bath, went to bed early, dosed up with hot lemon, headache tablets. I was determined to be well enough to travel three hours north for this very special family event.

However, I barely slept all night, waking continuously in fever - cold sweats and shivers - until my alarm went off at 6am. That's when I realised that someone must have run over my head with steam roller in the night because I could barely lift it off the pillow and my usual refreshing morning cup of tea had me rushing to the loo to vomit. Just as bad were the stabbing pains running along my arms and legs which made me feel that I was someone's voodoo doll.

As the family got ready to set off on the epic journey north, I knew I wouldn't make it. Not only did I feel wretched, I didn't want to take whatever I had to grand daughter No 2, or sit in the car with grand daughter No 1 for ultimately six hours and risk making either of them, or any other vulnerable people, ill.

My day was spent going through three kitchen towels and four toilet rolls and by the time my family arrived back home, my nose was as red as poor Rudolf's. What I didn't bargain for was the deep black hole I then fell into because of feeling weak and worthless and missing an event that was really important to me and one I can never see again.

After five days of self imposed quarantine, over the counter remedies, and endless nights of cold, soaking sweats, delirous fever, and pins and needles in my body, my other half tried to ring the GP for an appointment but as is usually the case, he couldn't get through because patients have to phone at a certain time of day. That's when everyone on the surgery's books who is sick tries to ring and it's pretty much like winning the lottery to then be able to get seen before the allotted time for making appointments expires.

The next step was to ring NHS Direct who asked him several questions. After answering them all, the service decided that I had to be carted away in an ambulance but I was having none of that. I felt foul but not unwell enough to justify going to hospital and after my mum died at the hands of the NHS, I promised myself that I'd never allow that to happen to me. Even if I'm in the middle of a heart attack, I'd rather die at home with dignity than be rushed into my local that cares more about bed space and targets then patient care. That aside, I'm very much aware that the NHS is the enemy of the smoker and they don't really like us darkening their hospital doors.

When the NHS Direct doctor rang back to assess my condition more thoroughly, I warned my other half to play down my symptoms. The diagnosis, therefore, was a heavy cold and Tamiflu was precribed "just in case". Personally, I think it was just normal flu and not the swine variety, but I do wonder how medics can distinguish between different strains of flu, or colds, without biological tests which don't appear to get done.

Tamiflu worked like a miracle cure and within a day of taking it, I felt infinitely better. Drama over and life now returns to normal but after several desperately delirious statuses left on Facebook during days in bed with nothing better to do than play with my mobile phone, I throught the world would like to know that the Drama Queen is not dead yet!

In the zone

H/t to Tyson for tipping me off to this one. Following an attempt to impose licensing conditions including Post Office-style queueing on town-centre bars, Oldham Council are now trying to stick their oar into the off-trade.

Trading standards officers are writing to 17 stores across Oldham setting out proposals to review their drinks licences. If any store wants to sell booze at less than 50p per unit they must stick to certain rules.

Proposals include the creation of in-store alcohol zones with no adverts allowed to run outside these areas and no (unaccompanied) under 18s allowed in the designated booze aisles.

Extra security officers must patrol the zone and stores must display clear responsible drinking messages as well as limiting the size of alcohol adverts in store.

It seems to me that the council are significantly exceeding their powers here, and no doubt the legal departments of the major supermarkets will be sharpening their knives as I write. Local councils have no authority either to impose minimum alcohol pricing nor to dictate the internal layout of shops. Oldham are taking on far more formidable adversaries than a few local publicans and nightclub owners.

It would be interesting to know which are the 17 businesses that the council have written to. Clearly this does not include all the small corner shop off-licences in Oldham which arguably are the major culprits in irresponsible retailing, in particular under-age sales. This runs the risk of creating a two-tier licensing regime which in itself would be open to legal challenge.

If this is an attempt to impose a minimum price by the back door it is a seriously ill thought out one. The vast majority of off-trade alcohol is sold at less than 50p per unit, so any business that attempted to comply with that restriction would no longer be viable. In effect that makes the conditions compulsory, rather than voluntary.

Interestingly, the large Morrisons store at Hollinwood, which from the look of it dates from the mid-1990s, already has what is effectively a segregated alcohol sales area and so could probably comply with the conditions with little difficulty.

Let’s hope that the results of the consultation, which runs up to the end of December, will leave this misguided initiative dead in the water, or at least watered down to insignificance.

Government hands pubs VAT lifeline

Never let it be said that the present government does nothing to help the pub trade. In response to pressure from the industry, they have agreed to defer the 1 January VAT increase. By a whole six hours. I’m sure that will get Darling and Brown unbanned from thousands of pubs across the country.

It shouldn’t be forgetten, though, that the whole futile charade of cutting VAT and then raising it again conceals a stealth increase of 8% in alcohol duties – now reversing that might be a real lifeline for pubs.

Drink sold at normal prices shock

The latest shock news is that heavy drinkers in Scotland are paying an average of only 34p for a unit of alcohol. But, hang on a second, that is a typical price for lower-end products in the marketplace, equating to £2.99 for 4x440ml cans of 5% lager, £3.32 for a bottle of 13% wine, and £9.52 for a bottle of Scotch or vodka. Off-licence shelves are groaning with products at that kind of price – it’s not as if it’s some irresponsible loss-leading mega-deal.

The report states that the average price paid by drinkers in Scotland is 70p per unit, but that is across the on- and off-trades. I’d like to bet that the average price paid in the off-trade is not too far above 34p, and certainly below 40p. “Drinkers pay normal prices for alcohol” – now that wouldn’t be a sensational headline, would it? And maybe “Normal drink prices to be hiked – poor hit hardest” would expose the true agenda rather more clearly.