Tuesday 25 August 2015

It's Tuesday - let's party


Hello. Let's see who I can offend, upset, or just plain piss-off today.

Having semi-ruined the life of pub smokers and got absolutely nowhere with young binge-drinkers, the British health police are now going for a softer target - the over 60s who sit at home minding their own business whilst drinking a half bottle or so of wine with their food.

A woman on the radio said that she was shocked to learn that some old folk were drinking the equivalent of one bottle of whisky per week. I tried to imagine how this translated into 'units', but it didn't take too much calculation to equate a 12% bottle of wine to a 40% bottle of whisky, by volume. I try not to keep spirits in the house, because after a quarter of a bottle it seems like a bloody good idea to have another quarter, and before you know it you are drinking three and a half bottles a week. THAT'S what I call over-doing it.

This latest attack on old people also coincides with a nation-wide war on sugar too, but the sugar business is - more sensibly - aimed at obese children. Statistics about the sugar content of fizzy drinks can be shocking but, having said that, all of us older people are lumped in with the youngsters and are expected to die aged 100+ with perfect teeth, shiny pink lungs and normal-sized livers. They cut us open to check after we are dead, then say, "Look at that - no wonder he died aged 84."

Can you imagine the drain on the economy if we all took their advice and lived to be 100?

Thursdays are our recycling days and I am often tempted to leave a note on the bottle bags saying that we are very sociable people and have a party here at least once a week, but I don't think they would believe me. They don't care anyway and they've seen it all before, but I leave it until they have moved up the road before going outside and risking the censorial side-long glances of the rubbish collectors.

I have a friend who had to go to the doctor for some minor ailment a few years ago, when he was about 60.

He was answering the usual questions to the receptionist who was filling out the forms that are required before actually seeing a doctor, and she asked him how much he drank a week.

"I go to the pub every evening and have two or three pints of beer, but I don't drink at home", was his honest reply.

"Right", she said, "I'm putting you down as an alcoholic".

54 comments:

  1. It makes you wonder how many pints of beer is drink to safe every night. I would go mad if I didn't have a few cans every day. Does that make me an alcoholic? Perhaps you should ask everybody on here how much they drink per night?

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    1. No point. They would only lie, just like they do to the doctor. When I last filled out one of those forms for a dentist friend of mine who knew how much I drank, he congratulated me on my honesty. A very rare thing, he said.

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  2. Sounds like I have been drinking already. It should say: It makes you wonder how many pints of beer is safe to drink every night?

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  3. We don't drink much but even so during a recent medical M was shocked to receive the advice - go and speak to your doctor about your drinking. He runs marathons, doesn't smoke, never gets sick and eats and drinks healthily. We laughed about it but it did get inside our heads. I have cut down, but only because alcohol has started to give me headaches.

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    1. You could admit to one glass of sherry at Christmas in the current climate, and they would send you to A.A. meetings.

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  4. Alcohol causes cancer! Alcohol is good for your heart! Alcohol is bad for your heart. Alcohol in moderation prolongs your life.
    Don't believe a word of it. Just get on with doing what you're doing.

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    1. Today I was told that alcohol decreases memory function in old age, and yesterday I was told that moderate drinking guards against Alzheimer's disease. I occasionally forget how much I drunk the night before, and have to resort to rating the strength of the headache to estimate it.

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    2. 'drank', not 'drunk', of course. I'm not (yet) before you ask.

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    3. I had quite forgot a man I used to work with. A self acclaimed, and probably an actual, genius. Built up and sold two electronic companies while I knew him. Also a heavy drinker of the hard stuff. He taught me good Scotch. Anyway, he would lift a tumbler on the rocks and say a short eulogy over the ten thousand little white brain cells being sacrificed. "But, I won't miss them at all."

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  5. No point me lying is there; when I'm not abstaining I drink a bottle of wine every day, and I enjoy it. If anyone tells me it's bad for my 'elf, they can bloody go jump.

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  6. Actually, they lie about everything to use scare-tactics, but all this does is remind us about the boy who cried 'Wolf!' I heard someone say - also on the radio - that 100 millilitres of a certain fizzy drink contained five teaspoonfuls of sugar. When I thought about it, I realised that this quantity of sugar in that much liquid would be well over saturation-point, and would mean you would be able to see about half an inch of crystals in the bottom of the glass.

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  7. I drink and party and enjoy life. Every bloody day.

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    1. All fine, just so long as someone doesn't confuse inebriation with happiness. They are very different things.

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    2. No more than I would have expected. Someone has to lose their sense of humour every day, and today it seems to be your turn.

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  8. I've tried hard to piss off everyone all at once. Although I've come close, there always seems to be one holdout. Since I've been known to be perverse, I have to smile at the holdout because it sounds like something i'd do.

    I've never drunk much alcohol, and when I do drink any, it's usually one or two drinks.

    I did try drinking every day, when I had my first job, where we'd all have a drink after work, and i'd have one or two drinks. No more than that. I felt so crappy by Day 5 and wondered why. The penny dropped, and I have few occasions where I've drunk on a daily basis since.
    Himself worked on a recycling crew next town over and knew who drank what. He imbibes a bit more often than I do, although not on a daily basis. He's commented more than once that the recyclers would likely think us teetotalers. Most residences had empty alcohol containers every week; we may have one container a month at most.

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    1. It is a sad fact that alcohol kills women 7 times quicker than it kills men. Want to buy some enzymes?

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  9. I may have a large gin and tonic later.......not bad as all ive had the last three days is effin stir fry and diet coke.....( it was fat club today and i needed to get my fat loss down)

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    1. Diet anything is a deckchair/Titanic sort of thing. If you switch to diet anything, you are just not taking enough control over your intake. Now who sounds like a health policeman?!

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  11. Dare I quietly say Tom that I don't drink alcohol. Hope this doesn;t stop our blog friendship - I just don;t like the stuff and never really have done. There was a time when if I really had to have a drink to be sociable I would have a campari and soda - but now I have got to the age when I don't need to pretend I like it. Our drinks trolley has gin on it which I know is at least twelve years old because I used to buy a bottle every Christmas for a dear old friend who liked a G and T before her meal in the evening - and she died twelve years ago. The farmer likes a malt whisky now and again but a bottle of Highland Park just about lasts him from one birthday to the next
    So if you want a bit of room in our recycling box pop up with a few empty bottles now and again.

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    1. Thanks for the offer, Weave. My parents didn't drink either. I respect tee-totalers, I just don't want to go round to their houses or spend nights out with them, that's all.

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  12. If ever I get to be as old as you guys I won't give a damn how much I drink. Hic!

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  13. My husband and I like a drink of scotch most nights and we take sugar in our tea (lots) He also goes out a couple of nights a week when he has three pints of real ale.
    We eat well, work hard and have a busy life. He is 71 and I am 69 (I remember a time when that number would make me giggle girlishly) and If I get any more advice on how to live my life I will probably start smoking again! (25 years a anon-smoker)

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    1. Not too frugal then. Good. If anyone tells you to change your obviously successful lifestyle, tell them to fuck off, eh? Nobody would dare suggest that to my face, especially when I am pissed.

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  14. Hahaha, Tom - I just have to add a Bavarian "Schmankerl": when this year our son and daughter-in-law became judge (her) and prosecutor (him) in Bavaria, they had beside other things to pass a health test. And one of the questions was: "Do you drink any alcohol?"
    And then followed the beautiful hint: "Please consider: Beer is alcohol, too." (A Bavarian by birth would see that otherwise: for them beer = liquid bread)

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    1. I always ate butter, add sugar to tea or coffee, love whipping cream, eat meat (and vegetables), and drink alcohol - all in moderation, but I never cared what diet-fashion they were preaching at anytime. The only thing I stopped was smoking when 32.

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    2. A Bavarian who does not drink beer is an alien from outer space dressed in lederhosen.

      A Dutchman who does not eat butter or cheese is the same.

      A German who does not eat wurst with beer is an English spy.

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    3. Sshhhhht! Not so loud... one might become suspicious... I don't eat wurst, and seldom drink (craft) beer....

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  15. Last Friday morning I was just crossing the road when I saw a skinny, wretched looking man fall over into a municipal flowerbed still clutching his can of drink. He started to shake convulsively as I approached and just then a young man swept past me towards him and speaking loudly said, " I'm just putting him the recovery position", and talking comforting words to the man who was by now clearly fitting and had wet his trousers. I looked for my phone to dial 999, but saw that several women had come out of a nearby hairdressers and one was already calling for an ambulance. As I walked on I heard the very efficient young man telling onlookers that the poor man was suffering an alcoholic fit. I felt both saddened and pleased by the scene I had witnessed.

    Tonight we put the ( fortnightly) recycling bin out - as usual it's full of empty wine bottles. At EM Towers we are lucky to be very happy, but many lead sad lives and no amount of inebriation can null the despair.

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    1. I am glad you keep an eye out for the neighbours. If full milk bottles accumulate outside our front door, people call the police as well.

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    2. Actually, if only one milk bottle was outside our door for more than half an hour, they would call the police.

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  16. Well, here is one for the drinkers out there. When my husband was undergoing chemo for cancer, his oncologist asked him if he drank alcohol (he doesn't) and said too bad, because the chemo would be much easier on him if he were a drinker.

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    1. I think it helps - and hinders - with all sorts of maladies. The trick is not to make it the prime cause of the malady.

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    2. My husband's oncologist told him the same thing....he doesn't drink at all and he had a terrible time with chemotherapy. The doctor said that he did his internship at a VA hospital, and all the old alcoholic Vietnam vets that came in for chemo reeking of liquor could handle the chemotherapy like champs! They never got sick from it. Weird but true!

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    3. I had never thought of that. Alcoholics are used to feeling ill, I suppose.

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  17. Good post, I have enjoyed the comments as well, thank you all.

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  18. Replies
    1. He had second thoughts about upsetting me so he deleted it.

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    2. I gad second thoughts, but not about Rachel. It was a case of 'people in glass houses' which I thought might be used as ammunition against me. I always expect to upset Rachel, no matter what I say.Unrequited carnal love, and all that.

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    3. 'Had', not Gad. No Garry Glitter here.

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    4. I always expect to upset you too.

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    5. I also was wishing I could have read it before it was deleted. Seeing it in my feed, only to get a Sorry, the page you were looking for doesn't exit is a bit of a letdown.

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  19. 48 comments on this post. It looks as though we think about this more than I thought.

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  20. I make my own wine. From starters kits bought in brew shops. I don't understand the gravity nonsense, so it doesn't count. I drink as much as I like and don't bother counting. La La La

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    1. Basically, if the hydrometer actually floats on the surface, then it's ready. Or should it sink to the bottom....?

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