Booze stats confirm boring Britain is drying

Re: drunk posting again

Demographic change? More Muslims = more non-drinkers. Muslim population is more youthful than the rest.

Re: drunk posting again

Lot more to this:

Having been involved in youth work, its a complete attitude shift in social life.

You'll find less go to pubs and nightclubs (you'll find a corresponding drop in these) as they are more likely to go round in each others house and maybe a have a couple of drinks (if any) rather than go down the rather than go out on a bender.

You'll also find drops for teenage pregnancy as well (coincidence?) and smoking.

Re: drunk posting again

The Mail's coverage of this story includes the headlines:

"Young adults less likely to drink, official figures show"

"Boozy over-65s drink more than the Facebook generation: Older people are only age group to increase consumption ... "

The Mail gets a lot of stick, but personally I've found its reporting to be mostly accurate. Pro tip: you need to separate "reporting" from "comment", because the papers - all of them - will no longer do that for you.

Re: Government scientists

Government scientists ....

Sadly I don't think this is anything to do with puritanism (although that does run, undiluted, through the veins of 95% of every politician and senior civil servant).

I suspect it is the thin end of the wedge to rationing healthcare. The STPs aren't working, and probably won't. Politicians and civil servants don't know how to address the real problem, or won't address it if they do (only two answers: higher taxes and/or partial payments at point of use). So in future, anybody turning up at the docs who admits to drinking more than a single lager shandy a week can be told, "we can't treat you, we have to prioritise other people, whose needs aren't their own fault".

I doubt they'll be saying that to people with sporting injuries which are equally the fault of the victim (IMHO), but having said that the cause of our current problem is old buzzards living longer and longer, making more and more use of health and benefits systems that they paid into under assumptions of 72 year life expectancies. There's an answer to that: free fags and beer for the over 50s. Bring it on!

Re: 1960s health advice?

Some people seem to get all angry about the nanny-state based on government advice. As if it's the law telling them what they're allowed to do.

And yet if the government did nothing and offered no advice, people would be complaining about them ignoring national health problems, binge drinking culture, wasted police and NHS resources etc.

People are free to ignore the guidelines. They are even free to drink themselves into a stupor every day if they like. Complaining about guidelines doesn't make anyone a fun party guy who likes a drink. It makes them a boring moan.

Re: 1960s health advice?

I don't know if it's so much science being better or worse in the 1960's than today, so much as it is different degrees of harm being tolerated. In the 1960's if you said that a bottle of wine doubled the risk of health problems from 0.1% to 0.2%, they'd probably shrug and say people make their choices, it's pretty much a tiny change to someone's personal risk. Today they'll look at what the 0.1% does to society as a whole and cry armageddon, running headlines about millions of £'s lost each year due to drinking and "thousands at risk of liver damage". There's just no acceptance of any risk at all these days. In the Sixties, people considered risk a normal part of life.

"Because no good story ever started with "I went down to Costa and ordered a latte"."

Sure it can. Just add, "Nothing special. Just a latte, thank you." then see where you end up.

"Because no good story ever started with "I went down to Costa and ordered a latte".

Ya know something? I don't even know what a "latte" is. Is it something special? Or is "latte" Italian for a while coffee to make it sound more exotic and poncy?

Now git off ma lawn!

Re: Possible reasons

Fewer.

Re: Possible reasons

Student drinkers?

At current cost of education and drinks, I'd bet few students can afford an alcoholic haze.

Re: Possible reasons

You seem to have missed out the most obvious reason, Occam's razor and all that.

Young people don't drink as much because they chose not to.

"wine has become more alcoholic"

Some wine, and by up to 20%, not 4x.

Re: This isn't because wine has suddenly become more potent

Whether you blame global warming or the change to earlier ripening clones of the major grape varieties is up to you (probably both), but wine has become more alcoholic.

...and ironically strong cannabis hasn't got much more than the 20-25% THC levels reached in the mid 90s.

Re: This isn't because wine has suddenly become more potent

French red wine to be 11.5% alcohol. Now, normal would be 13.5%

Lightweight horsepiss for spoilsports.

Malvasia, Mavrud, whatever was the name of that Greek Island Rocket Fuel, Tempranillo, Negramol have all gone from 16-18 down to... Guess where... Thirteen point F**** Five. It is the australization of the wine making. It is industrialized and outside France traditional wine making regions winemakers have either adopted Aussie tech or are outright owned by Aussies (Eastern Europe).

You need to get some stuff directly from the growers ( I bring ~ 50l in the truck each summer) to get proper quality rocket fuel nowdays. Even that is 15. Classic relic wines which used to hit more like Mavrud are not available any more.

So whatever you get your choice will be 13.5 or 13.5.