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Post by Patrick on Mar 22, 2009 12:53:59 GMT
More Anti-drink propaganda from Parliament - from the Lib Dems. OK. It's a bad state of affairs, and we know it's the truth about Britain today - but I'm beginning to think that as each new study emerges that it's a slow drip feed of propaganda that may well result in some seriously restrictive legislation of some kind? Here's the latest "study": "The number of women being admitted to hospital for alcohol poisoning has almost doubled in the past five years, according to official statistics that suggest binge-drinking is placing acute pressures on the NHS.
Figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats show 13,074 women in England were treated in 2008 compared with 6,691 in 2003, a rise of 95%. Over the same period, the number of men admitted to hospital for a similar complaint rose from 6,329 in 2003 to 10,904 last year, a 72% increase. Women and girls now represent more than half - 54% - of all admissions for alcohol poisoning.
"Such dramatic increases raise serious concerns that the health messages on alcohol simply aren't getting through," said Don Foster, the Lib Dem culture, media and sport spokesman. "Local communities, police officers and hospital staff are being forced to bear the binge drinking burden while ministers continue to do little more than pay lip-service." If anything, you could put the blame on Government for starting it? Extra hours for supermarkets. Encouraging local councils over the past fifteen-twenty years to encourage pubs and bars and licenced cafés into town centres? Partly this state of affairs have been brought about by the lobbying of ministers/MP's by big business. Now they've fallen flat on their faces. |
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Post by everso on Mar 22, 2009 14:42:41 GMT
I really don't see how they will MAKE people drink less - unless they stop the sale of alcohol in all but off licences, pubs and restaurants.
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Post by Flatypus on Mar 22, 2009 14:55:28 GMT
I don't see any kind of plot if studies consistently show that booze is bad for you. There might be more of a plot if some stood out to show the opposite! It's not altogether surprising either if more women fall subject to alcohol poisoning than men. They are smaller and more susceptible but more than that, there's a much older culture of heavy drinking among men and a mistaken belief that sweeter girly drinks are somehow less alcoholic than heavier macho ones. Often the opposite is true.
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Post by riotgrrl on Mar 22, 2009 15:11:43 GMT
I don't see any kind of plot if studies consistently show that booze is bad for you. There might be more of a plot if some stood out to show the opposite! It's not altogether surprising either if more women fall subject to alcohol poisoning than men. They are smaller and more susceptible but more than that, there's a much older culture of heavy drinking among men and a mistaken belief that sweeter girly drinks are somehow less alcoholic than heavier macho ones. Often the opposite is true. Piffle, some of your posts are really quite nasty about women. What's with this 'girly' drinks thing? I certainly don't know anyone - male or female - who suffers from the mistaken belief you identity. I think you just make things up in order to say vaguely nasty things about women sometimes. |
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Post by riotgrrl on Mar 22, 2009 15:14:15 GMT
Patrick, i don't think it's anti-alcohol propaganda or anything. Genuinely now women in their 30s and 40s are suffering from life-threatening liver diseases.
The extraordinarily cheap price of alcohol, combined with a liberalisation of our culture to make alcohol more acceptable and far more widely available is causing signficant public health problems in the UK (and that's before I start talking about violent crime).
We need to restrict where alcohol is sold, and we need to put the price back up to the level it was at 20 or 30 years ago.
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Post by motorist on Mar 22, 2009 15:15:16 GMT
What's with this 'girly' drinks thing? Didn't you know? In Piffleworld you drink fruity cocktails with brollies in them, and G&Ts  And NOT in a pint glass! |
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Post by Flatypus on Mar 22, 2009 15:58:33 GMT
I don't see any kind of plot if studies consistently show that booze is bad for you. There might be more of a plot if some stood out to show the opposite! It's not altogether surprising either if more women fall subject to alcohol poisoning than men. They are smaller and more susceptible but more than that, there's a much older culture of heavy drinking among men and a mistaken belief that sweeter girly drinks are somehow less alcoholic than heavier macho ones. Often the opposite is true. Piffle, some of your posts are really quite nasty about women. What's with this 'girly' drinks thing? I certainly don't know anyone - male or female - who suffers from the mistaken belief you identity. I think you just make things up in order to say vaguely nasty things about women sometimes. What on Earth is nasty about women in that post? That women are on average smaller than men, so the same amount of alcohol is a higher proportion? That women are more susceptible to alcohol anyway than men? Hardly news about 21 units for men, 14 units for women? That certain sweet drinks are specifically promoted with a girly image to appeal to younger women (girls really) who don't fancy the macho lager lout image - alcopops, blue WKD for instance? That a lot of people imagine heavier more powerful tasting drinks are also more powerfully alcoholic? That men have a much longer tradition of heavy drinking than women, so possibly more models of avoiding actual alcoholic poisoning? I would have thought if anything, that the last point at least implies more disapproval of male drinking habits. What do you find vaguely nasty about women in any of that? |
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Post by riotgrrl on Mar 22, 2009 16:00:23 GMT
Piffle, some of your posts are really quite nasty about women. What's with this 'girly' drinks thing? I certainly don't know anyone - male or female - who suffers from the mistaken belief you identity. I think you just make things up in order to say vaguely nasty things about women sometimes. What on Eaarth is nasty about women in that post? That women are on average smaller than men, so the same amount of alcohol is a higher proportion? That women are more susceptible to alcohol anyway than men? Hardly news about 21 units for men, 14 units for women? That certain sweet drinks are specifically promoted with a girly image to appeal to younger women (girls really) who don't fancy the macho lager lout image - alcopops, blue WKD for instance? That a lot of people imagine heavier more powerful tasting drinks are also more powerfully alcoholic? That men have a much longer tradition of heavy drinking than women, so possibly more models of avoiding actual alcoholic poisoning? I would have thought if anything, that the last point at least implies more disapproval of male drinking habits. What do you find vaguely nast about women in any of that? The 'girly' thing. |
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Post by Flatypus on Mar 22, 2009 16:05:57 GMT
Well blame the manufacturers of alcopops and WKD and other alcoholic syrups quite deliberately promoted with a girly image to appeal to teenage girls. Don't blame me for saying these drinks are given that girly image. As somebody said, before then was the image of cocktails with parasols and sparklers. And before that was Babycham. All of it intended to give an image of girly innocence and to appeal to women's usual preference for lighter tastes than men.
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Post by riotgrrl on Mar 22, 2009 16:08:20 GMT
Well blame the manufacturers of alcopops and WKD and other alcoholic syrups quite deliberately promoted with a girly image to appeal to teenage girls. Don't blame me for saying these drinks are given that girly image. As somebody said, before then was the image of cocktails with parasols and sparklers. And before that was Babycham. All of it intended to give an image of girly innocence and to appeal to women's usual preference for lighter tastes than men. Piffle, I'm not disagreeing with your point re. marketing drinks to young girls. But the noun is 'girl', not 'girly'. Girly is usually only used as a noun as a light-hearted insult based on the gender of the insultee. Hence the adjective 'girly' carries these negative, disparaging connotations with it. You combined the word 'girly' with a suggestion of thickness (i.e. not undertanding how alcohol works) to make it even more mildly disparaging It's probably a language thing. |
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Post by Flatypus on Mar 22, 2009 16:11:28 GMT
Piffle, I'm not disagreeing with your point re. marketing drinks to young girls. But the noun is 'girl', not 'girly'. Girly is usually only used as a noun as a light-hearted insult based on the gender of the insultee. Just a minute: you said the noun is 'girl'. So what? Girly is an Adjective describing the drink! The drinks don't have a gender. They are given a presumed female one by being made girly. I'm not sure that to talk of a girl drink would mean anything other than whatever a girl drinks - which could be neat pernod for all anyone knows - while a girly drink clearly defines something marketted as a bit of harmless frivolous fun that needn't be treated seriously. |
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Post by riotgrrl on Mar 22, 2009 16:21:09 GMT
Piffle, I'm not disagreeing with your point re. marketing drinks to young girls. But the noun is 'girl', not 'girly'. Girly is usually only used as a noun as a light-hearted insult based on the gender of the insultee. Just a minute: you said the noun is 'girl'. So what? Girly is an Adjective describing the drink! The drinks don't have a gender. They are given a presumed female one by being made girly. I'm not sure that to talk of a girl drink would mean anything other than whatever a girl drinks - which could be neat pernod for all anyone knows - while a girly drink clearly defines something marketted as a bit of harmless frivolous fun that needn't be treated seriously. Yeah, I see what you're saying. It probably just came across a bit wrong to me, but because this makes sense. |
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Post by Flatypus on Mar 22, 2009 16:31:25 GMT
Sorry. I have used girly as a noun on occasion, but always pejoratively or sarcastically about the kind of female who likes to give that kind of simpering or otherwise helpless little innocent impression (and is probably a scheming little wotsit as hard they come underneath it). Oh well, thanks for following me through. (If you get any fluffier you might risk getting mistaken for one - or a gonk ) |
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Post by swl on Mar 22, 2009 17:30:04 GMT
I'm in favour of tighter controls, but I can't but help thinking...
First they came for the cannabis users, but I didn't care
Then they came for the smokers, but I didn't care
Then they came for the drinkers ...
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Post by housesparrow on Mar 22, 2009 17:31:01 GMT
Leaving aside the word "girly" (which sounds okay to me if applied to a drink), Piffle has a point. Sometimes sweet alcoholic drinks are deceptive. I can't see the point of them myself; one of the good things about alcohol is that it doesn't taste like lemonade or orange juice. I just wish there was a non alcohol alternative that tasted as good as a good dry wine.
Whatever happened to alcohol-free wine, BTW? Eisberg or some such, wasn't it?
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Post by swl on Mar 22, 2009 17:42:01 GMT
Whatever happened to being able to "hold" your drink? It used to be the mark of a man. Nowadays it seems the object of the exercise is to get absolutely paralytic as quickly as possible.  |
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Post by Patrick on Mar 22, 2009 17:59:59 GMT
I'm in favour of tighter controls, but I can't but help thinking... First they came for the cannabis users, but I didn't care Then they came for the smokers, but I didn't care Then they came for the drinkers ... That's what seriously worries me. Where I mentioned the slow drip drip drip of propaganda - that's what I feel it is - as they did with (bit of an extreme example I know) Iraq as they started to do with Iran! We do seem to have this policy of wearing people down in order to bring any new legislation in. It really does smack of a primitive form of mind control. Paranoid? Moi? |
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Post by Flatypus on Mar 22, 2009 18:31:12 GMT
Whatever happened to being able to "hold" your drink? It used to be the mark of a man. Nowadays it seems the object of the exercise is to get absolutely paralytic as quickly as possible. And for that matter of a Lady. It's been mentioned (mostly in the male context) on Thinking Allowed I think (a programme I generally dislike) and I added to it. First the lads stopped following Dad into the pub and getting laughed at if they couldn't show they could hold their drink like 'real men' - consider, a lot of what is now called binge drinking was your typical working man's evening consumption. Second, they went on cheap booze trips where they met much stronger lagers. Typical English beer used to be around 4%. We brewed the strongest keg PA in Britain at 9% and continental lagers are often in that range. Out of sight, they could get as legless as they liked and (a bit like the old Americans putting soap in Indian whisky because it wasn't real Firewater unles it made them sick) they want the most out of their 2 weeks in Benidorm and that means out of their tree. Then add drugs. You take them for the effect, not the flavour - something of the same approach appears to have transferred to booze. So you're getting a Continental approach all right - but it's the ancestral continent of roaring drunk in Valhalla, not knocking several bottles of wine back daily without actually getting plastered. Then there's the bad boy (and bad girl) image: prove your independence by being as obnoxious as possible and girls wanting to prove that they have just as much right as boys - part of my objection to 'feminism', that it has too often been an excuse for girls to disparage the more traditional behaviours expected of them and look to the worst about boys as an ideal to live up (or down) to instead of requiring the boys to control themselves more like them. So all told, I think you have more than one generation which has lost the idea of holding its drink and gone altogether the opposite way with the girls emulating and competing with the boys where formerly they might have prided themselves in being more civilised and in making it clear that they preferred boys with more interest in them than their beer. It all feeds into the Nike mentality of Just do it - as long as you keep paying for it. |
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Post by swl on Mar 22, 2009 19:57:46 GMT
Piffle, that's all quite interesting but, can I ask a question?
Are you paid by the word?
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Post by bonbonlarue on Mar 22, 2009 20:33:10 GMT
Shock horror.
Alcohol consumption has increased. Surprisingly, after the Government relaxed the licensing laws.
A few weeks ago I heard that the Government is becoming concerned about the increased level of gambling in this country.
Nothing to do with the relaxation of gambling laws?
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