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 Cruise and Duty Free
I never bother with duty-free, as I don’t smoke and don’t want to carry heavy bottles of booze that I might break. I did once drop a bottle of Bell’s on the floor at Dulles Airport in Washington. And it broke!
But when duty-free sales were announced on the Tannoy on Oriana, I was very surprised at the rush.
Is There A Teetotal Gene?
Thinking about the last post about the about of fluids I’m drinking, I do wonder about the drinking habits of my family.
My father wasn’t a heavy drinker and he probably got through about four small bottles of Guinness or cans of Long Life in a week or so. There was a time, when I used to walk round to The Merryhills in Oakwood to pick it up from their off licence. But that was all stopped, when they said you had to be sixteen (?) to buy alcohol. He would probably be classed these days as a light social drinker.
I am probably that now, as I like a glass of wine or a bottle of beer with a meal. I can’t think the last time, I drunk a pint of anything.
But it hasn’t always been thus. At University, I drunk fairly heavily and I probably did too in my late teens, when I served in The Merryhills. I remember one night, I had thirteen small bottles of Guinness.
C had a similar drinking pattern, in that she got very drunk once just before I met her and probably twice or so, when we were together. She only drunk wine and the occasional whisky. Even as she was dying, she didn’t turn to the bottle, but partly because the drugs she was on had ruined her mouth.
What about my children? By twenty, none of them were drinking and only one ever drunk heavily.
So there seems to be this pattern in the male in my family, where drinking is responsible. I was also introduced to alcohol at an early age of about eight, by my father and I did the same to our children.
But where did this responsible drinking come from.
My paternal grandfather, who I never met, as he died before the Second World War, was a serious drinker and a heavy smoker. He died of pneumonia and asthma, but my father used to tell tales of picking him up at the Conservative Club every night of the week, when he was very much the worse for wear.
My father would always talk about the terrors of alcohol, with reference to his father. I suppose it hit home because I’d never met him and he had died in his forties.
There may or may not be a teetotal gene in my male line, but it’s more down to parental behaviour.
Why Am I Drinking So Much?
Yesterday, I drank heavily all day.
I had three mugs of tea before I left home to do my shopping and then another cup of tea in Carluccio’s with my breakfast.
Before I left for the football, I had a large glass of milk and then I had a tea on the train going to Ipswich.
I didn’t drink anything in the ground, but I did have a small bottle of water coming home, to wash down my Warfarin.
With my supper, I then had two 330 ml. bottles of Celia lager, to wash down the Marks and Spencer’s curry.
A couple of weeks ago, I wouldn’t have been able to drink that amount of fluid, as my throat was rather dry. But just as my gut seems to have improved, it now seems to be the turn of my throat.
Thinking through the last two years since my stroke, I don’t seem to have been able to drink like this. In fact some doctors have told me to limit my fluid intake.
In some ways though, this drinking behaviour has happened before. In the early 1970s, I was working as a consultant at Time Sharing in Great Portland Street and was getting most of my fluid in the Mason’s Arms next door. I remember then thinking, I was drinking too much, so I switched from coffee to tea at home and started to drink masses of the stuff. I felt a lot better.
Then sometime about 1985 or so, I gave up coffee again and started drinking tea, after I thought I’d got a serious mouth infection. I actually, stopped drinking coffee this time, a couple of months ago, as I thought I’d got a similar infection.
So it’s all very strange. At least drinking lots of tea, with one drink a day, isn’t going to do me any harm.
One side effect of my health and possibly all of the drinking, is that for the first time in a year or so, wine now seems to taste like wine again.
Should We Have A Benefits Cash Card?
It has been proposed by a thinktank, that those on benefit should get a cash card, that they can only spend on approved purchases, that would not include alcohol, cigarettes, Sky television, gambling and other things that the great and good felt were not necessary.
It’s one of these issues like capital punishment, that if went to a referendum, the general public would vote for.
I wouldn’t, as it is just against my beliefs.
We need to cut down the drinking of alcohol and the smoking of tobacco, but this doesn’t just apply to those on benefit.
But the biggest fault in the proposal is the practicalities.
I am a coeliac and if someone like me was on a benefits cash card, would they be restricted from buying good quality food. After all the gluten-free food you get on prescription is generally crap.
And let’s say you are careful and always shop in the local market, where good food is often cheaper. Is every market stall going to have the expense of accepting the cards, when cash is the best method of payment. So will the cards be able to withdraw cash.
I’ve had times in my life, when I wasn’t very well off and I always resort to cash, as I then know how much I’ve got left.
Afore Ye Go
When I was in my teens, I used to mark up newspapers at this shop, which then was owned by a Mr. Shaw.
The Paper Shop at Oakwood
I’d get in at 5:30 in the morning, if I didn’t oversleep, mark up all the newspapers for the delivery boys and girls to distribute an hour or so later. I do wonder, if that routine, which I did for a couple of years, set me into my routine of always getting up early and working.
The flats in the background of this picture had a tale about one of the shop’s customers.
Flats With A Tale
He was the owner of a well-known department store in North London. he was also a dedicated alcoholic and when he went into the local hospital, he was on a bottle of Scotch whisky courtesy of the NHS.
I don’t know the end of that story, but a pharmacist friend has provided a post script. Years ago, the ward rounds in hospital often offered a top of whisky to those, who wanted it. They found it funny, that each bottle of the Bell’s whisky, they used to serve, had “Afore ye go” on the bottle.
It still does!
Guns And Alcohol Don’t Mix
If ever there was a story that proves that guns and alcohol don’t mix it is this one of the tragic death of Royal Navy officer; Ian Molyneux.
When my youngest son was doing some training to see if he wanted to join the Guards, he forgot to take his boots. So I drove them down to Pirbright and gave them in at the gate. The sentry was a bit strange and actually pointed his weapon at me. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but he too could have been drinking. I do know that I was distinctly uneasy at his behaviour and made a rather quick getaway.
The last time, I came across a sentry with a weapon, was when I went over HMS Liverpool. But I didn’t feel any unease at all, as the sentry was female and she handled it impeccably.
Drunken US Sailors
There has been some entertaining correspondence in the letters pages of The Times lately about alcohol on ships in the US Navy.
Some years ago, I worked briefly with an American engineer, who’d been an officer on a US Navy nuclear submarine. He told the hilarious tale of how they visited Portsmouth in the 1960s. They needed to be resupplied and asked for cases of fresh orange juice. This was not in the Royal Navy stores at the time, so they sent them bottles of beer instead. The only problem was where to hide the beer and according to the tale, much was kept in the torpedo tubes.
A good time was had by all concerned.
Another tale I heard from a former US Navy officer, was when they were working with the Royal Navy, or any other one with a sensible alcohol policy, face-to-face meetings generally didn’t take place on the US ships.
A Good Day For Criminals?
On the whole, I think a minimum price for alcohol is a good idea. I said so here a few days ago.
But the downside is that criminals will be smiling at all the profits to be had by selling cheap alcohol to all and sundry, after it was announced that a minimum price will come in. It’s here on the BBC. I doubt the measure will curb binge-drinking and the associated crime.
And then we have the Leveson report, which is due to be released in a couple of days. According to this BBC story, many are worried about it on a freedom f speech basis. They have a point, but if we have more restrictions on reporting, which overall is a good thing, the value of a good story will increase. So I think, we could see more harrassment of celebrities as the pot of gold will be even bigger. Especially, as many countries won’t care what is illegal in the UK and will fully publish on the Internet.
Just remember that if we had a privacy law like the French, would the details of the MPs expenses have emerged? So the so-called great and good, who break the law, may well be protected by Leveson’s recommendations.
But as the phone-hacking by the News of the World has shown, wrong-doing gets properly investigated.
Government To Set A Minimum Price For Alcohol
The Times is saying that the Government will be consulting on this. What I noticed was that the article was accompanied by a picture of a plastic bottle of own brand supermarket cider, which it said could treble in price.
If it increased in price by ten times, it wouldn’t bother me, as that is the sort of drink, that would make me ill, as I’m allergy to gluten, which those drinks often contain.
My preferred long drink is actually Aspall’s cyder, which is generally about a couple of pounds for a half litre. The muck shown in the article is quoted as costing about £1.20 and that’s for four times as much.
I prefer to enjoy my drinking, rather than drink to oblivion.
So I’m very much in favour of a minimum price for a unit of alcohol. It might cost me a couple of quid a week at most.
The Anonymous Widower 