Trouble

Popping out for a quiet one

One of the main objections to opening a licences establishment these days (and the rare times it happens, it's usually a Spoons), the the fear of "alcohol fuelled disorder". It's one of the main motivators of the wowsers behind Alcohol Concern. Even the Drinkaware posters typically depict the downside of alcohol consumption with a photo of a (badly staged, and thus usually blurred) drunken fight.

But how prevalent are boozy brawls these days? Maybe I go to the wrong places, but I've never seen anything worse than arguments.  It's probably true that I, along with most other beer bloggers, are unlikely to go to places where we're likely to get beaten up, as we (allegedly) go to taste the beers rather than get tanked up on them.

It may well be true that a certain level of trouble happens in city centres with a large concentration of clubs. But the typical patrons of these are students. The combination of immature brains, poor alcohol capacity and a raging sense of entitlement can be a heady mix. A certain level of disorder is likely, but it's nothing that kids haven't been getting up to for centuries.

My opinion, as always, is that the Ruling Classes do not want the Lower Orders drinking, as it reduces productivity and gets them talking about stuff that they'd rather not be discussed.  How better to put them off than to basically scare them away from pubs by telling them they'll be beaten senseless if they set foot in them?

Alcohol consumption can have it's downsides, yes. But it's far more likely to result in a raging hangover and a sense of bitter self-recrimination than a trip to intensive care.

So, No Hammond Organ Then

Many months ago when I started this blog, I did a series on old beer ads. Pretty much without exception, I found them ridiculous, and mercilessly took the piss out of them. There is of course a reason why beer commercials are ridiculous. It's called the Advertising Standards Agency.

This is possibly slightly unfair. The ASA is basically there to make sure advertisers don't make dubious or blatantly untrue claims about their products. But with alcoholic beverages, the rules are somewhat different. They're not allowed to tell the truth

You cannot say drinking alcohol will make you more popular. You cannot say alcohol will increase your chances of sexual success. You cannot even say alcohol gets you drunk. If you even imply any of this, your ad will be banned.

Such a phenomenon has just happened to Captain Morgan.  Apparently, the ASA Youth think that you shouldn't encourage young people to go out in the middle of the week with their friends where they may, the horror, consume intoxicating drinks. I mean, what? Are these youngsters children of diehard Salvation Army types? Do they have any idea what real young people do to relax in 2014? Even twenty years ago, I can tell you a lot more happened than a quiet chat over a couple of Single Morgans Spiced & Cokes.

With the well-documented fall in alcohol consumption by the under-25s, the likes of Diageo are probably justified in trying anything to increase business, but is that ad really such a grave threat to the Youth Of Today? Whatever happened to allowing people to make mistakes and to learn from them?

I'll be surprised if today's young people ever manage to grow up at all.

The Plebs Cannot Be Trusted

An average working class house yesterday

Alcohol brands pervade football broadcasts, apparently, according to a new study.  Booze companies, sponsor tournaments, put signs up by the pitch, even get the commentators to mention their brands.  This increases acceptability of alcohol and creates costly problems as people buy lager and get drunk on it.  Children will even be tempted to try it.  The horror.  So researchers have revealed at the British Science Festival, anyway.

Notwithstanding the picture on the website with children messing with tomato ketchup - surely that would make such a high-sugar, high-salt food acceptable to kiddy palates- you only have to look at the list of sponsors to doubt their motives.  General Electric - a major polluter and designer of the infamous reactors involves in the Fukashima Disaster; AzkoNobel, just your average toxic chemical manufacturer; and Saudi Aramco, a state-owned oil company. Nothing untoward, of course, being made normal and acceptable here.

The attack on Beer Sponsorship by these researchers is, as always, the result of middle class snobbery.  The working man will see Man United or Chelsea in an FA Cup game on TV, and will go out and buy cases of the promoted product (in this case Budweiser), proceed to get hammered and beat up his wife and kids.  This is because he is stupid, and does not know any better.   Nice middle class people do not drink lager.  They have a single glass of wine with their dinner and of course never have any problems with alcohol whatsoever.  There is always the assumption that the uneducated will see a single beer advert, and become alcoholics as a result.

(Advertisers see it much the same way.  Macrolager sponsors Football, the most watched sport in the country.  More middle class sports are given cash by financial companies offering esoteric services to the rich.  Had you heard of Investec before the 2013 Ashes series? I hadn't.)

The Portman Group were actually quoted in the BBC article as saying "National trends around alcohol consumption are encouraging. Government figures show that fewer and fewer children are even trying alcohol and the number of adults that drink to harmful levels is also falling."  The evidence suggests this is, in fact, true.  But the paper's authors insist "We believe a similar restriction to that imposed on tobacco products may be justified."

I will be blunt here.  Even taking away the whole personal responsibility angle, there is a difference between alcohol and tobacco.  Tobacco, when used typically, shortens life and impacts health.  Alcohol, when used typically, does not.   So, why treat them the same?  Simply because the upper and middle classes do not like the workers enjoying themselves when they could be being more productive - ie. serving the economic interests of their betters.  All that time and money spent in the pub or on Carling slabs could be spent working or saving.

I can't see Prohibition coming (history shows it doesn't really work), but I can see an awful lot of people's pleasures being curtailed

Drinka drinka drinka drink

I remember posting this on another blog nearly two years ago.  Things have not changed much.  In fact, they seem to have got worse.  Cue the Pub Curmudgeon :

Apparently, so this article says, drinking alcohol is not good for you.  And drinking lots and lots of alcohol can cause you major health problems.  Who’d'a thought it?  Who woulda thought it?

I’m sure it’s reasonably well known that the Inland Revenue makes a hefty profit on alcohol tax and, even if you take out the costs to the NHS and Police caused by alcohol abuse, I’m sure the Government kitty receives a nice boost from the booze.  So why does it spend so much time and effort trying to get people to reduce their intake?

From what I can see, it’s fairly simple.  The Government, comprised and run as it is by the Upper Classes, does not approve of the lower orders drinking.  They hate the idea of loud, garishly dressed, uncouth and smelly people cluttering up the streets when drunk.  The obvious manifestation is the flat tax on alcohol.  This is based on the amount of pure alcohol in the product.  At present, the rate for spirits (alcoholic beverages above 37.5% ABV) is £25.52 per litre of pure alcohol.

Let’s take my regular daily dram, Sheep Dip.  This costs around £25.  At 40%, a 700ml bottle contains 280ml of pure alcohol, meaning spirit duty will be £7.15 per bottle. Fair enough.  But this amount will be the same for all 40% 700ml bottles, whether stuff like High Commissioner (£12) or a rich bastard’s whisky such as this 1952 Highland Park.  See the iniquity?  The poor man must pay much more tax as a percentage of his purchase than the rich man.  This is because he cannot be trusted not to neck the whole bottle in an hour, beat up his wife, smash up a bus shelter and throw up on the council flowerbeds.

The health “initiatives” from the Department of Health always amaze me.  Eat your five portions of fruit and veg a day.  Drink moderately.  Don’t smoke.  Take more exercise.  For what end, I ask myself?  I can’t honestly believe the Government and their corporate paymasters actually care if we’re fit, healthy and free of pain.  They would gladly have the entire working class in agony so long as they kept quiet and didn’t cost anything.  I can only assume that they like the idea of controlling people - “It’s good for you, damn it.  And if we say it’s good for you, then you’ll do it, by God!”.

And despite what the BMA seems to believe, even if you lead the healthiest of lives, eventually you will die.  And these days (and we are actually more healthy, generally speaking, than we were 100 years ago) we are healthy enough to live long enough to die from nasty age-related diseases which will have us lingering in supported ill-health for years.  If I were cynical, I would say doctors want this as then there would be more demand for their highly-paid services.  I’m so glad I’m not that cynical, or anything.

With a bit of luck, and a lot of trying, I won’t end up like that.   My intention is go the way of my grandfather and drink myself to death by 75.  It’s not a cheerful train of thought, I’ll admit, but better than than being 90 and not having enough wherewithall to know who’s wiping my arse. (3/10/2011)

What is to be done?

Pub closures are increasing. The British pub is dying.  Oh woe for the pub!  What is to be done?

I do my best.  I drink far more than the Government say I should be doing (The way I see it is - the British Pub is a threatened institution, and if I have to go to them and drink lots of beer to keep a great tradition alive, then it's a sacrifice I'm prepared to make).  But even my unwise alcohol intake cannot keep even Lancashire's pubs going by itself.

They say it's the smoking ban, or the recession, or the pubco beer tie.  These things don't help.  But in my opinion (and why else are you here if you don't want to hear it), the main reason is increasing social disapproval of public alcohol consumption.

As I've said before, a lot of bad things happened in the past.  We think we're better than we were even 30 years ago (we're not, but that's another story).  For most adults in the 1970s, the pub was a major recreational destination.  Pints were mere pennies.  Everyone socialised and they were happy, at least until enough booze was sunk to make people maudlin or fighty.   But with increased social and employment mobility, people simply knew fewer people nearby.  Certainly not well enough to go to the pub with them.  Would you want to risk being seen at your drunken worst by your barely-known neighbour?

No, best stay in and watch the TV.  And there's plenty of that these days (hundreds of channels as opposed to 3 in 1979).  Sure, you still want a drink.  Could go to the pub, but you work long hours and your wife would prefer you to be at home with her. Hooray for the £4 bottle of supermarket wine or slab of Carling.

So we reach the 21st Century, where pubgoing is an "event" rather than an automatic happening.  Beer is now lots of pennies rather than a few.  When you do go, you have two or three.  Don't want to risk being caught over the limit in the morning as your job is 25 miles from your house.  Can't go for a lunchtime pint even if you did have the time (presenteeism is everything).  Disciplinary offence now.

Everyone drinks a few less pints in the pub on average than they used to.  Pubs now are a wafer-thin margin business, and are being caught by increasing costs and decreased custom.  Of course the most marginal will go to the wall.  Welcome to Capitalism.

It goes without saying that the Upper Class Government we have does not approve of the plebs drinking, but who needs prohibition or even exorbitant taxation when you can simply create a social climate that frowns upon drinking with other people?

I care not what others think of me.  Anyone who has seen what I wear will attest to that.  But humans are creatures of fashion and herd mentality. Who wants to be seen doing what is simply not done?