The Hour Change Has Completely Knocked Me Out
Last Saturday, the 29th of October, the clocks went back and I’ve not had a totally good week.
On Tuesday, I couldn’t get dressed, as my gammy left arm and hand didn’t work.
- I also felt a bit unsteady, as if I’d had a couple of whiskies. But then, I never drink anything more alcoholic, than 0.0% real ale.
- As there was no-one else, I dialled 999.
- An ambulance came and took me to the Royal London Hospital, where nothing was found.
- But as my body responded to the hospital’s superb air-conditioning, I was allowed to go home.
- T think the hospital thought I took a taxi, but in reality I took the Overground to Dalston Junction station.
They had suggested, that I should take my planned trip to Doncaster. Which I did!
- I took a Hitachi Class 800 train to the North.
- And I took an InterCity225 train home.
Both have air-conditioning that only affects me positively, unlike Class 390 trains, which have put me in hospital before.
On Thursday, I wrote up my trip, or at least the ticketing in An Affordable Trip To Doncaster.
On Friday, I fell asleep on the floor and missed a friend bringing round my washing.
On Saturday, I woke late, went out for lunch and then watched the television.
In the evening, I was tired so went to bed at nine, which is unusual for me.
I got up at nine and did my trip on the Elizabeth Line, which I wrote about in Taking A Train Between Abbey Wood And Ilford Stations On The Lizzie Line.
As a Control Engineer, I tend to believe that the loss of the hour a week ago, has been the cause of my erratic sleeping.
- I should also note, that as a child, I dreaded the clock changes.
- I was also a strong supporter of the Daylight Saving Bill and wrote a post called An Open Letter to my MP About Changing to Central European Time.
I’ve also got a strange skin that I wrote about in My Strange Skin.
Brexit: Duty-Free Makes A Come-Back For Travellers Returning From Britain
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the Irish Times.
This is the first two paragraphs.
For the first time in more than 20 years people travelling to the State from British ports and airports will be able to load their luggage or their cars with tax-free tobacco, alcohol, perfumes and so-called luxury items once the new year bells chime in less than a week.
Duty-free between Ireland and Britain was abolished 21 years ago as it was not considered compatible with the emerging single market. However with the UK now leaving the EU and its single market from the start next year the old rules are set to revert.
As someone, who never buys anything in duty-free, I can’t say I’m bothered.
Mojitos On Display By The Tills In Dalston Marks And Spencer
As this picture shows, the well-publicised Mojitos are handy in Dalston Marks and Spencer, which is perhaps thirty metres from the London Overground at Dalston Kingsland station.
They are the two light-blue cans on the left of the shelf.
I had just relieved the shop of two bottles of my favourite 0.5% Southwold Ale.
Incidentally, I have never drunk any alcoholic drink out of a can, without using a glass as an intermediary.
These days, I don’t even drink soft drinks directly out of a can.
If Transport for London allowed sponsorship of rail lines, perhaps the North London Line would be sponsored by Marks and Spencer, as they have stores very close to the following stations.
- Richmond
- West Hampstead
- Hapmstead Heath
- Dalston Kingsland
- Hackney Central
- Stratford
I think there will be more.
Scotland’s New Alcohol Pricing Laws
Scotland now has new alcohol pricing laws, as is detailed in this article on the BBC, which is entitled Scotland Ends Cheap Booze As Minimum Price Starts.
A minimum price on alcohol of fifty pence will certainly have effects, although my preferred drink of Suffolk-brewed low-alcohol gluten-free real ale from Marks and Spencer, which is just 0.25 units for a half-litre bottle at £2.60, would not be affected. I don’t think it’s even sold in Scotland, as it’s a very soft Sassenach drink.
I feel that the minimum pricing will either work very well or be a disastrous failure.
I think it depends on how law-abiding, the average Scot is!
The article in the Guardian is entitled Smoking Rate In UK Falls To Second-Lowest In Europe .
This is said.
In 2016, 15.8% of adults in the UK smoked, down from 17.2% in 2015, according to data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Some 15.5% of adults currently smoke in England, rising to 18.1% in Northern Ireland, 17.7% in Scotland and 16.9% in Wales.
I suspect the Scottish government hope to see similar falls in the sales of alcohol, that the various smoking bans have brought.
If I walk into all the local shops round here, cheap booze is prominent, but I rarely see anybody drunk on the street and never on the buses.
On the other hand, I can’t help feeling that the higher booze prices will be just another tax on those, who can’t afford it.
Thoughts On Alcoholism
In the last month or so, I’ve done something that I’ve never done before in my life.
I’ve drunk perhaps half a bottle of beer when I’ve got up. Admittedly, I’d left the bottle half finished by my computer.
It was good.
In the 1960s, I could drink a lot of beer. I just seemed to need it.
About that time, I decided I needed to drink large amounts of fluids and swapped to tea and Coke.
My doctor understands my needs for fluids and the practice nurse has the same problem. The nurse puts it down to leaky skin, which he has.
I actually love walking in the rain, so that might help explain it. We all live by the laws of physics.
My father warned me off alcohol in a practical way, by giving me halves of Adnams down at Felixstowe Conservative Club, whilst we played snooker, when I was about fourteen.
My father drank a lot of fluids, but I never saw him drunk and most doctors would say he was a sensible drinker. Like me, he also drank a lot of tea!
He had a reason to control his drinking! His father had died from complications of being an alcoholic at 40, when my father was about twenty.
My grandfather had lived just around the corner from where I live now and my father had once told me, he had drunk large amounts of beer and had moved on to whisky.
Around 1900, there was very little to drink except beer, so did my grandfather’s need for fluids mean that he turned to what was available?
Now I like a good beer and know of its properties to slake a thirst when you’re dry. I’ve worked in foundries in the 1960s and beer was always available.
So is there a type of person, who needs a lot of fluids and if beer is available they turn to it. In some cases does this lead to alcoholism.
As to myself, I must have gluten-free beer and because I’m on Warfarin, I must keep my alcohol consumption down.
So I now drink a gluten-free beer, that is just 0.25 of a unit and tastes like real beer from Marks and Spencer.
But then it is real beer, as it is brewed in Southwold by Adnams.
My life has come full circle.
The First Off Licence In Frinton
Frinton had a reputation that it was a town, where the buying of alcohol was difficult and there were no pubs or shops selling the demon drink.
In the early 1980s, C was a pupil barrister in Ipswich and she was asked to do a case, where normally barristers would not be required.
She was asked to do an off-licence application for the Co-op, who were opening a small supermarket in the town. They thought that they wouldn’t get the licence, so that had approached her Chambers for some heavy weaponry to do the necessary.
When she met the man, who would actually hold the licence, she knew it would be a forgone conclusion.
He was a charming man, of Asian origin, who had been chosen well by the Co-op to knock down the barriers in the oh-so-genteel town of Frinton.
Whether she played the race card in Court, I do not know, but from fellow lawyers, who’d faced her in various cases, I know she had a subtle skill with words, that told those that matter, what she would do if she lost.
That was the last she ever heard of the case after the application for an off licence was approved.
The Train From Hell
I won’t talk about the match at Blackburn, as Ipswich lost.
But I had one of the worst train journeys I’ve ever had returning from Blackburn to Manchester.
It was one of Northern Rail’s scrapyard specials, or a Class 150 or similar to name it correctly.
But the real problem was that it was full of drunken twenty somethings, who were drinking bottles of Foster and other rubbish. The noise was horrendous.
Until corrected, I would assume everybody was going from Blackburn to a night out in Manchester.
Such behaviour on the Underground, would have resulted in many taking a walk home.
I was glad to get off the train at Salford Crescent to get another train to Piccadilly. But that wasn’t without its contingent of drinkers.
Wetherspoons To Open A Pub On The M40
It looks like Wetherspoons will be opening a pub on the M40 according to reports like this one from the BBC.
I have no view on whether it would increase drink-driving, but surely it would be just as easy to drink in a pub just off the motorway, than one in a service area.
But what I would like to see is better rail interchanges on motorways! Very few railway stations are close to motorways with large amounts of parking. Personally, I’m not too badly affected, as I don’t drive, but sometimes when I want to meet someone driving along the motorway, finding a suitable station is difficult.
What Is Royal Stag?
The New Zealand cricket team, seems to be sponsored by Royal Stag.
It appears it’s an Indian made whisky!
Enough said!
Ladies’ Day At Aintree
As ever the weather didn’t cool the ardour of the Liverpudlian ladies at Ladies’ Day at Aintree yesterday. There are pictures here.
There is no truth in the rumour, that the Royal Liverpool Hospital, had to deal with ten thousand drunken young ladies with hypothermia.
The Anonymous Widower 