Stroppy landlords? I’ll drink to that (From The Northern Echo)

Stroppy landlords? I’ll drink to that

2:57pm Friday 13th January 2012 in Sharon's View By Sharon Griffiths

Binge drinking’s a problem – but leave us our daily tipple.

TWO booze-free days a week? Well, that would have been my old mum’s daily glass of Harvey’s Bristol Cream down the drain then.

Most binge drinkers already have a few alcohol-free days a week, if only because after a gallon of lager, a string of Jagerbombs and a few vodkas to wash it all down, they’re too hung over to face anything stronger than water.

Still, we have got ourselves into an awful mess with alcohol in this country and all suggestions are welcome, including a minimum price.

It’s hard to believe that the price of booze is ridiculously cheap at the moment.

Back in the olden days, when I was a student, a bottle of vodka cost just under £3, which was also the rent of an admittedly grotty bedsit. Can’t see anyone getting a bedsit for the price of a bottle of vodka now.

Back then, pubs were for grownups, before the drinks industry began cynically targeting young drinkers.

First came alcopops – booze without that nasty bitter taste to put you off – and then came bars. Not pubs full of old men and stroppy landlords, but bars designed to get young people in and legless as quickly as possible.

And didn’t they do their job well?

IF you can’t hear yourself speak, you drink faster. Standing up has the same effect too. Until you can’t stand up any longer and you lurch out into the street and fall over.

It is no accident that people drink too much in these places. That was precisely the point.

When teenagers were invented in the Fifties they had to resort to coffee bars when they wanted places to gather. The greatest risk they ran was dizziness from two many double espressos. They say rock and roll in Britain was born in the 2 i’s coffee bar where all the great acts of the Fifties and Sixties – and Cliff Richard – started out. Over coffee.

Meanwhile, the next generation took our babies to pubs from the very beginning to eat and drink and relax.

Pubs were no longer strange mysterious unknowns for 16-year-olds wondering how to go about ordering a drink. They’d known the drill since they could toddle.

So now we have a generation who can’t enjoy themselves without having so much to drink that they can’t even remember if they enjoyed themselves or not. Our town centres have become no-go areas on weekend evenings. And ever younger people have livers like those of old tramps after a lifetime of meths.

I don’t know what the answer is.

But stroppy landlords, more expensive drinks, no loud music and a lot more seats might be a start.

And no nagging pensioners about a daily sherry.

Self-scanners

SELF-SCANNERS are the work of the devil. They rarely save time. They certainly cost jobs.

And they undoubtedly send blood pressure soaring with their bossy little complaints. Authorisation needed... unexpected item... bags removed...

And even now I’ve got the hang of them, I’m sure I end up paying twice for things.

Do you remember the hand-held scanner thingies they used to have in Safeway? I had to stop using those because, however assiduous I was, whenever I went through a random check, I’d always undercharged myself.

It wasn’t dishonesty (honest) just total incompetence. But try explaining that to the steely-eyed supervisor.

So I handed in my scanner and went back to standing in the queue.

Antony Worrall Thompson was reducing to sneaking cheese and wine, an onion and some cut-price coleslaw through the self scanner in Tesco. Bit desperate really.

He received a police warning. He was lucky. Opportunist thieves in the riots got three months or more for nicking a lot less.

Still, Tesco make more than £3bn profit each year. You’d think that, with all that dosh floating around, they could have more proper checkout staff. It would keep a few more people in jobs, more customers in a calmer state of mind – and celebrity chefs out of temptation.

Hospital food

YOU’D think, wouldn’t you, that providing simple, healthy, appetising food would be one of the basic things hospitals get right. Decent food is the basis of good health. When you’re dealing with sick people it’s doubly important.

Yet despite many and varied campaigns, hospital food still tends towards the dire, or the cold, congealed and stodgy, with a new report claiming that some hospitals spend as little as 86p on each meal.

When husband was in Darlington Memorial Hospital some years ago, the food was so awful, I had to take him in M&S picnics every visiting time. And nobody even commented on his untouched hospital food.

It’s a long way from the old Mount maternity hospital, in Northallerton, when I was having babies. One day we had a message from the cook – she had some nice apples and would we like them in a pie or a crumble? We felt better immediately.

Food isn’t just fuel, it’s our first and easiest medicine. If only more hospitals realised that.

Back to babies

BRAD Pitt is apparently terribly tricky to buy Christmas presents for. No posh jumper and a pair of cufflinks for him. Instead, Angelina Jolie bought him a waterfall in California. I’d love to see how she wrapped it.

But at least that was a lot more romantic than some of the bling being heaped on baby Blue Ivy, daughter of Beyonce.

Gifts include a £10,000 high chair studded with Swarovski crystals, a £13,000 fantasy carriage cot, a pink crystal-studded bath and a £200 designer silk dress.

So what happened to the Age of Austerity?

But you have to laugh – because soon enough the cot will be outgrown, the Swarovski crystals will be encrusted with mashed banana and the designer silk dress stained with baby poo.

However rich their parents, you can rely on babies to bring things back to basics.

A touch tacky

I DON’T care how brilliantly Meryl Streep portrays her, or what colour your politics may be, but don’t you think there’s something horribly tacky in making a film about Margaret Thatcher, when she’s still alive and ill?

Chocs away

HOW’S the new year diet going? Ah...

Apparently, 2.6 million people start a new year resolution diet and 92 per cent of them have given up by Twelfth Night, January 6.

So if you’re still iron-willed and determined, many congratulations. And if you’re just busy scoffing up the last of the Christmas chocs, well, at least you’re in good company.

Backchat

Dear Sharon,
I WAS very interested to read your article about babyboomers doing more for the people of their parents’ generation, but I think society has changed too much.

When I was young, my father’s father lived with us and my other granddad and grandma lived a few streets away. My mother always baked extra for them and helped with their cleaning, shopping etc. Although my mother worked very hard, she didn’t have a job outside the house, so she had time and energy to help my grandparents.

Like most women back then, I didn’t go back to work until my youngest started school so I could help with the grandparents too.

Now I’m 66 and still work part-time. I also look after my grandchildren for two days a week so my daughter can go out to work, otherwise she and her husband wouldn’t afford their mortgage. Many of my friends are doing the same. You think you’re finished with childcare and you start all over again with the grandchildren.

Until she died last year, I was also helping to look after my mother. We are caught in the middle between two generations and by the time our parents have gone and our grandchildren are grown up, we’ll be tired out, but nobody will have time to look after us.

I’m fed up with politicians going on about family life. How can there be a proper family life when young couples need two wages to keep a home going?

Barbara Martin by email