The cold light of day

This story about Zara Phillips’ boyfriend Mike Tindall being banned for drink-driving should give a salutary lesson about the dangers of the “morning after”. Alcohol is only metabolised by the body at a rate of about one unit an hour, so if you’ve had a skinful, you may well not be under the limit again for twenty hours or more. All the claims about him having an unusually low rate of alcohol absorption seem like special pleading – surely if you’ve consumed four beers (which I doubt were ordinary bitter strength), seven glasses of champagne and a vodka and Red Bull, you must expect to be at least nudging the limit the following day. And surely someone such as Mike Tindall could have afforded one of the personal breathalysers that are now available for around £50, especially given the fact that he had been banned in the past.

But this is something on which the official government propaganda keeps very quiet. “Don’t drink anything at all immediately before driving” is a clear message, even if it is dishonest in terms of real risk. But, if you have had a few drinks, how are you supposed to know when you are OK to drive again? Even saying “if you have had anything to drink, don’t drive again for twenty-four hours” wouldn’t cover everyone, and would represent ludicrous over-caution for most people. The only way to do this is to teach people unit-counting – how much alcohol each drink contains, and how quickly it is metabolised by the body. But they refuse to do this, on the grounds that it would allegedly encourage people to “drink up to the limit”. This head-in-the-sand attitude is costing lives, and causing responsible people to lose their licences. Why shouldn’t the annual drink-drive publicity campaign one year focus on the morning-after risk, as I asked here ten years ago? I have come across a number of people who ostentatiously claimed never to even have a half of mild before getting behind the wheel, but whose overall alcohol consumption must surely have meant they were often well over the limit on the morning after. They may have believed they were being ultra-responsible, but they weren’t.

It's 1988 again

There has been a predictable outcry from anti-drink pressure groups about Wetherspoon’s decision to offer Greene King IPA at 99p a pint. But this is a beer of moderate strength that generally appeals to an older male customer base who typically may only have a couple of pints anyway. The idea that their pubs are suddenly going to be inundated with binge-drinkers swilling gallons of the stuff is not really credible – if nothing else, it would be fairly hard work getting drunk on IPA anyway.

In reality, this is just a headline-grabbing initiative by Wetherspoon’s that will heighten the public perception of their pubs as places offering good value – which in a recession is no bad thing. It’s unlikely to make much difference to overall consumption patterns, or even prompt many drinkers to switch pubs. People will continue to pay a lot more to drink better beer in more characterful pubs. But, as I’ve said before, if you’re running a bog-standard pub company outlet within shouting distance of a Wetherspoon’s, charging £2.50 a pint for ordinary bitter looks increasingly like a wilful denial of reality.

Spreading your wings

Wetherspoon’s are clever pub operators, and, although they make the occasional mistake, weigh up the potential of their pubs very carefully in advance. But pretty much all of their pubs essentially derive their trade from people who are already in the vicinity – no Wetherspoon’s pub is a destination pub.

In Exeter, though, there’s a Wetherspoon’s pub called the Imperial which I assume occupies a former hotel. But there’s a distinctive difference – it’s about three quarters of a mile from the city centre (although nearer to the University) and has a large car park. Therefore that pub, unlike the vast majority of other Wetherspoon’s, can be a destination venue. On my visit it seemed to be thriving and the car park was full.

Over New Year, I took my elderly parents out for a pub meal. Wetherspoon’s have an extensive, good-value menu, but, in the absence of a car park or convenient nearby parking, they couldn’t be considered.

I’ve suggested this in the past, and it has come to nothing, but there must be scope for Wetherspoon’s to expand their estate by taking over failing suburban pubs that are often situated at public transport interchanges and alongside a parade of shops. Such pubs surely aren’t beyond redemption and, while they may draw a substantial car-borne trade, aren’t primarily dependent on it. A thriving Wetherspoon’s could revitalise many suburban centres, and they might be surprised how far people would travel for their food offer.

Maybe they’re anticipating an eventual cut in the drink-drive limit, but Wetherspoon’s seem to shy away from any site that has a car park.