lazythursday
Well-Known Member
To reduce the harm done by alcohol FFS
But as someone who is clearly a problem drinker from your regular late night postings I'm unsurprised you have this attitude.
Denormalisation of alcohol
- Thread starter Maurice Picarda
- Start date
But as someone who is clearly a problem drinker from your regular late night postings I'm unsurprised you have this attitude.
Humberto
Justice is order
By making it more expensive for poor people, according to your prejudice. great.
Humberto
Justice is order
Cheeky nasty arsedribble.
lazythursday
Well-Known Member
You missed the bit about making it cheaper in pubs. Rebalancing the crazy current system where it's so much more expensive for people to use their local
lazythursday
Well-Known Member
True though
This is a problem as Sue has mentioned already
My dad likes bitter / ale around 4%, it’s hard to find this on tap / in supermarket when he visits, indeed often hard to find it below 5%. He has similar problems finding red wine that’s below 14%
Humberto
Justice is order
It doesn't need 'rebalancing'. Who the fuck are you? What are you on about?
Silas Loom
Advanced. Forthright. Signifficant.
I have reservations about this policy unless soft drinks, including low and no alcohol beers, are still substantially cheaper than booze in pubs.
lazythursday
Well-Known Member
I reckon a lot of people who like going out drinking would disagree with you.
Humberto
Justice is order
Make it more expensive to buy in shops?
Anyway I'm leaving. I'm not having idiots questioning my honour like this. No loss.
Silas Loom
Advanced. Forthright. Signifficant.
Off to the shops?
lazythursday
Well-Known Member
I'm sorry to get personal it was rude. But I've spent so much time around pissheads I lack tolerance these days.
Yossarian
⏭️
Mocking somebody because you think they might have a drinking problem is not cool and it doesn't seem in keeping with the tone of this thread
ATOMIC SUPLEX
Member Since: 1985 Post Count: 3
It's a good point. The expense of social drinking (pubs) certainly drove me to go to the shops, neck my cheap booze and chuff my fags alone in the garden. I already liked a drink, but I think this ultimately tipped me into new territory. No need to worry about closing time or to concern myself with saving some of my brain for the journey home.
It can't have just been me.
It can't have just been me.
Silas Loom
Advanced. Forthright. Signifficant.
My apologies to the OP, then.
Silas Loom
Advanced. Forthright. Signifficant.
On here or in the UK in general?
seeformiles
Lost in the wood
This is the big one. Personally I’d keep/make drugs, cigs, gambling and sex work legal but ban any form of advertising relating to the same. Certain things sell themselves. I’m appalled at how normalised gambling has become and the number of adverts on all media makes me sick. While it’s one vice I’ve never really understood, I’ve seen several friends gamble themselves into near destitution in a very short space of time. A trial initiative took place in N.Ireland in the early 00s that featured bookies setting up in certain pubs. If there was ever a recipe for disaster, that was it. Thankfully it got pulled pretty quickly but it was one cynical bastard who came up with that one.
A380
How do I change this 'custom title' thing then?
It’s definitely being denormalised. My first two employers (80s and 90s) in very different sectors had bars in their larger buildings that were open for drinks at lunchtime and after work. It’s almost impossible to imagine now. Like smoking in the office.
My 20 something kids both drink though, so I don’t think it’s gone away.
My 20 something kids both drink though, so I don’t think it’s gone away.
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Yossarian
⏭️
Be snide if you want to, I just found your post a little jarring on a thread where dozens of people have posted openly about their issues with alcohol
Silas Loom
Advanced. Forthright. Signifficant.
Not sure that works for sex work, advertising (at least in principle) helps eliminate intermediaries, and smart policy should be to criminalise users rather than providers, the opposite of the sensible approach to drug and gambling trades.
Silas Loom
Advanced. Forthright. Signifficant.
Dozens of people may well have posted in that vein, but others, and Humberto is certainly not the first, have been shouty and belligerent because they don’t like the thread’s focus. And if they said “this thread scares me because I am a drinker”, they would deserve more sympathy than they get for ranting about puritanism, cruelty to the poor, killjoys and so on.
Going back to workplace drinking, I briefly worked at a well known sector specialist London law form and when I was there they had recently changed their “new joiners drinks” to “new joiners afternoon tea”, this was partly to be more inclusive but there had also been a few incidents of inappropriate behaviour that had happened following drinks events.
Silas Loom
Advanced. Forthright. Signifficant.
(((coeliacs)))
AnnO'Neemus
Is so vanilla
Wine's got stronger over the past couple of decades too. Used to be that 11-12 per cent was normal wines, but then it started creeping up and 14 per cent isn't unusual for a red, sometimes 15 per cent.
Old World (European) wines tended not to be so strong*, it was the New World (Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, South America) eg big Australian Shirazes, that were 14, 14.5, 15 per cent, but then over the years they started getting stronger.
*Having said that, not sure whether eg Italian Barolos have always been so strong.
There's been a couple of factors resulting in alcohol levels going up, one being trends/fashion, as people liked those big New World wines, some Old World producers adapted to market dictates, I understand that was the case, at least to an extent, with Bordeaux wines, as I heard it not quite from the horse's mouth, but from a horse-adjacent mouth in Bordeaux itself.
The other is climate change. Sunnier weather equals riper fruit equals more sugars equals more alcohol. There's a fine balance to be struck. If you don't let the sugars convert to alcohol your residual sugars might be too high and your wine might be too sweet.
There's a certain amount of tweaking that can be done, especially with wines that use a blend of grape varietals, but I've just this week heard of a European wine producer buying equipment to reduce the alcohol levels in wine.
While there was an upward trend - and that will continue insofar as climate change is an ongoing issue - there are a couple of factors now pushing alcohol levels down, one being trends/fashion, many more consumers are wanting lower alcohol wines, drinks more generally.
And the other is alcohol duty levels - eg more duty is going to be payable on a wine that's 12, 12.5, 13, etc per cent than is payable on a wine 11 per cent or below. So winemakers are being asked for or they're offering, wines with lower ABV, because going up or down a percentage point or even half a percentage point from 12 or 11.5 down to 11 per cent can make a difference as to how much tax will be due.
An increase has been frozen by the government/HMRC, but is due to come into effect in February 2025.
At the moment:
"UK consumers currently pay £2.67 on duty for a bottle of 12.5% abv wine, compared to the French who pay just 3p equivalent a bottle irrespective of its strength...
the government also confirmed it will proceed with a new tax regime in February 2025, which will see duty on wine increase incrementally based on abv.
From February a single amount of duty paid on wines between 11.5 -14.5% abv, currently £2.67, will be replaced by up to 30 different payable amounts from £2.45 - £3.10 per bottle."
Alcohol duty frozen till February 2025 - Harpers Wine & Spirit Trade News
The government dashed hopes of a cut to alcohol duty following the announcement of the Spring Budget today (6 March) by chancellor Jeremy...
harpers.co.uk
ouirdeaux
Caring, Understanding, Non-judgemental Type
The problem with discussing how any given drug (and i agree with the poster years ago who said alcohol should be referred to as a drug) should be regulated is that people generally divide into two camps.
Either:
'This is a drug I enjoy. I use it responsibly' (might be true, might not be) 'and though others might have problems with it, this can be addressed by measures that do my not affect my preferred way of using it. IT'S MY RIGHT.'
'This is a drug I don't enjoy, because either I don't like the effect, or I liked it too much and had to give it up entirely. For this reason it should be banned or severely restricted, and I don't give a shit about anyone else's right to use it.'
Either:
'This is a drug I enjoy. I use it responsibly' (might be true, might not be) 'and though others might have problems with it, this can be addressed by measures that do my not affect my preferred way of using it. IT'S MY RIGHT.'
'This is a drug I don't enjoy, because either I don't like the effect, or I liked it too much and had to give it up entirely. For this reason it should be banned or severely restricted, and I don't give a shit about anyone else's right to use it.'
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Winot
I wholeheartedley agree with your viewpoint
I'd recommend joining the Wine Society. Might make a nice gift for your Dad? It's a mutual.
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
Do you really need it spelling out?
Here inparticular, UK in general.
AnnO'Neemus
Is so vanilla
What wines does your dad like, generally speaking, some wines do tend to be stronger, so if he's looking at New World, they will tend to be stronger, for reasons I mentioned in my previous post about wine strength.
I'd say something like a Pinot Noir, Gamay or Grenache might be lower alcohol than what he's been drinking, but they're probably going to be lighter-bodied than what he's used to.
Because it's a balancing act and the stronger alcohol level acts as a counterfoil to full-bodied elements in a wine. If you drank a medium or light bodied red wine that had a high alcohol level, it would be out of whack, similarly a full-bodied wine with much lower alcohol levels would be out of balance.
So if he's looking at bottles of the same style of wine hoping to find one of lower alcohol level, that's probably not going to work, he's going to need to look at different styles (country/region/grape varieties), maybe more Old World, like the ones I mentioned before, or maybe a younger Tempranillo or Garnacha, steer clear of fuller-bodied Crianza, Reserva, Gran Reserva, or a Merlot rather than a Shiraz.
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