2011 November | Head Rambles

Archive for November, 2011

Drink up Lads

Grandad November 9th, 2011

Last Friday there was an article in the Irish Times.

‘Dirt cheap’ alcohol linked to suicides in youth

I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time as it was fairly typical of the kind of scaremongering that goes around these days. I mean to say – “dirt cheap”? For fuck’s sake! Anyone in this country who goes for a few pints is very rapidly going to find his wallet emptied.

And what’s all this about suicides? I know the suicide rate has increased alarmingly over the past couple of years but I would hazard a guess that unemployment, debt, house repossessions and the rest have a certain bearing?

Then I noticed a paragraph –

Ms Shortall said that, in many cases, young people were not able to handle the amount of drink they could now afford and that there was “an onus” on the Government to address the problem.

Aha! Here we go. The Bully State is moving in on alcohol?

She expected the group to make recommendations on pricing and availability which would then be examined by the Government. “We’re looking at the question of minimum pricing to remove that dirt cheap element from the market,” she said.

There was one whisper from the voice of reason -

Kathryn D’Arcy, director of the Alcohol Beverage Federation of Ireland, said alcohol consumption was on the decline in the State over the last decade but that it would support all evidence-based proposals to address misuse.

Sorry, Kathryn but you should know by now that “evidence based” means a rake of biased junk ‘science’.

But one swallow does not a summer make, as they say so I let it pass.

-oOo-

On Tuesday however, the screws were tightened a bit.

Taoiseach vows to tackle availability of cheap alcohol

This was more or less a regurgitation of Friday’s piece but the language had become that bit more hysterical.

Alcohol has gone from “dirt cheap” to “exceptionally cheap”. Wow! “Huge quantities of cheap alcohol are being consumed.” Fuck! The country must be swimming in the stuff. “The statistics are stark.” Hah! In a Bully State, the statistics are always stark.

There were a couple of lines that did bring a cynical smile to the face though –

“Furthermore, one in four deaths in young men is due to alcohol, compared with one in 12 due to cancers and one in 25 due to circulatory disease”

Here it is folks. If a Bully State wants to control you they try to terrify you with the prospect of cancer and heart disease. Where have I heard this before?

“overindulgence in alcohol was the biggest social problem facing Ireland today.”

Damn! And here was I thinking that it was poverty and unemployment or even smoking and obesity. Just shows how wrong I can be?

-oOo-

Coincidentally [my arse] another item appeared on Tuesday.

Surge in alcohol abuse reported

Now this one was the “science” bit. Just in case we are not scared by the politicians’ rhetoric, they start firing scary statistics at us.

Of course this piece introduces the poor innocent children. These poor little waifs who are so hard done by with their errant parents.

over half a million children are living with adults who engage regularly in hazardous drinking.

What the fuck is hazardous drinking? Do the adults insist on lowering their pints while sitting on a narrow ledge on a tall cliff?

“This equate [sic] to 587,000 children – over half of whom are under 15 years of age – being exposed to risk from parental hazardous drinking.”

Bloody hell! There can’t be a sober house in the land.

Of course the figures don’t bear close examination but that doesn’t matter. The scary stuff is out there now and everyone is quaking in their [alcohol filled] boots.

-oOo-

Is it a mere coincidence that we have a budget in the next few weeks? Do I see an obvious connection?

Let’s make some predictions for the budget and beyond.

A big hike in excise duty.
Minimum pricing.
Graphic [Photoshopped] images on all bottles.
A massive clampdown on advertising.
Restrictions on where alcohol can be consumed.
Talk of “secondhand alcoholism”.

Need I go on?

You know the routine.

Scapegoats

Grandad November 8th, 2011

There were three completely separate bits of news over the last couple of days.

They all have one thing in common though.

They all show this modern preoccupation with scapegoats.

The first was that terrible pileup on the motorway in the UK. They showed film on the Beeb last night of police scouring a rugby ground looking for “forensic evidence” to prove that a fireworks display case the accident.

What a load of fucking bollox.

Even from a distance of a couple of hundred miles I can hazard an accurate guess at the cause of the accident – people not adapting their driving to match the road conditions. We will hear all about smoke from the fireworks display blanketing the road, doubtless resulting in calls for yet more legislation. We will hear calls for reductions in motorway speed limits. Neither of those would have made the blindest bit of difference as the cause is quite plain – bad driving. This isn’t good enough though. There has to be a specific “cause” so that people can rest assured that there won’t be a repeat. Someone or something has to be blamed so it looks like the scapegoat is going to be the fireworks and the poor sods in the rugby club who held the display.

Another item is the conviction of Whacko Jackson’s doctor. What for? From what I gather he didn’t inject Whacko with anything lethal? He just left the stuff lying around and Whacko did the job himself. Whacko was a nut case of the highest order and just fell foul of the Darwinian Principle. But the people have to have someone to blame, as they can’t possibly blame Whacko. After all he was a “celebrity” who can do no wrong, so the poor doc got hammered just because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The third snippet was a small local item.

An unfortunate motorcyclist died in an accident near here. There was no one else involved – it was just one of those terrible things where a motorbike leaves the road and the rider doesn’t survive.

This ain’t good enough for the Plods though. They have to seal off the road “for forensic examination”. What in the name of fuck are they looking for? Again, they have to have a scapegoat as someone or something has to get the blame.

I don’t know why there is this obsession with blaming someone. An accident is an accident when all is said and done, and a bit of finger pointing isn’t going to bring a single person back from the dead. None of the above could have been avoided, as there is no actual cause except maybe for a bit of recklessness on the part of the victims.

Why can’t they just accept that these things happen from time to time?

Old habits die hard

Grandad November 7th, 2011

It’s over ten years now since I worked for an employer.

Since then I ran my own little business which was too fucking successful and it meant I was working all the daylight hours, and some of the darker ones too. I gave up the business as it was too like hard work.

Since then I have been living the life I deserve – no fucking work but still collecting the old pension. Nice.

There is still one little hangover from the employment days though. I still get that sinking feeling on a Sunday evening.

Thinking back, I suppose Mondays have been a drag since I started school. So from the age of five, or whatever age it was, I have been dreading Sunday evenings because the next thing to come down the track is Monday Morning.

In school, Sunday evening meant a frantic dash to two days worth of homework and dreaming up excuses why it wasn’t finished. Then for many years I had to submit timesheets and travel claims which meant a Sunday evening frantically trying to invent mileages and filing in forms.

Even now, I still get that sinking feeling on a Sunday evening where I do a soul search to try to remember forgotten homework or wondering whether I will get away with another week’s grossly exaggerated mileage.

Old habits die hard.

Of course these days I get the lovely glow when I remember that Monday morning now means as long a lie in as I want. I just wish I could get the glow without the panic.

I shall console myself later by listening to the traffic reports.

Nowadays I just love hearing about traffic chaos as I sit in my cosy chair.

Heh!

Times past , work
Comments(12)

Rules and Regulations

Grandad November 6th, 2011

I don’t know how people would label my political philosophy?

Right Wing? Left Wing? Conservative? Liberal?

Personally I don’t give a shit about labels but if I had to give myself one, I would like to think of myself as as Aspiring Libertarian. And what is that, you may ask? Essentially I believe in personal liberty. People should be free to make their own mistakes. The only law that should exist should be there to protect people from the action of others, and any law that doesn’t fulfil that basic requirement is a bad law. Government dictats that tell me what I can eat, drink, smoke, where I can park my car or any other action that doesn’t affect others is a bad law. The goal of an intelligent mature society should be to have a few laws as possible and not to have life so wrapped up in petty laws, rules and regulations as to make it virtually impossible to live without breaking some fucking rule or other.

I would like to think that I use my philosophy in the running of this site. I try to have as few rules as possible. There are some things though that I will not tolerate here.

I will not tolerate anything that could be deemed to be libellous.

I will not stand for racial or religious intolerance.

A bit of banter is fine but serious abuse of commentators is not allowed.

The most important rule though is that I have the final say in what is acceptable or not. I reserve the right to alter or delete comments I deem to be offensive. I reserve the right to bar people from commenting altogether. I reserve the right not to give any explanation for my actions.

So there you are. Essentially just four rules. A Libertarian site?

Of course there is another rule…..

It’s my site and I can do what I fucking like with it.