Vice squad
Tuesday, October 16, 2007 
'Hazardous drinking, the middle-class vice' screams the front page headline in today's Times.
"Social drinkers who regularly down more than one large glass of wine a day ... risk damaging their health in the same way as young binge drinkers. The figures will be used by the Government to target middle-class wine drinkers and to make drunkenness as socially unacceptable as smoking."
I hold up my hand. I'm middle-class and I like a drink. Three or four nights a week I share a bottle of wine at home with my wife. She normally has two (small) glasses and I knock back the rest. Drunk? Hardly ever. I drink wine (or beer if I'm in the pub) because I enjoy it and - I think - it relieves stress. The same reasons, in fact, that many people smoke.
Apparently, one large glass of wine represents three "units". According to the North West Public Health Observatory (!), a man consuming 22 units a week is in the "hazardous" category. I've no idea whether I'm a "hazardous drinker" or not but I'm certainly not going to waste good drinking time doing the calculations.
Who the hell do these people think they are? This is making me very, very cross. Seriously, I can feel my blood pressure rising. Nurse, quick, I need a drink. And it had better be a large one ..... Cheers!
Full story HERE.
Simon Clark
John Mortimer has written an excellent article on the subject in today's Daily Mail. See HERE.
Reader Comments (7)
Isn't it amazing, as I predicted when the smoking ban came in, it hasn't been very long before Nanny State picked her next target.
If you look close enough you will see the tear in the corner of my eye.
WHO WILL BE NEXT???????
There will be another report either next week or the week after saying drinking more than one glass of wine a day is good for you.
Smoking. Obesity. Alcohol. Salt etc. It should be by education, not law.
I know you're a genuine lad when it comes to defending people's freedoms, Simon, but I nevertheless had a good laugh at this one.
Why? Because the sqeals of the self-righteous non-smoking drinkers were music to my ears. Many of these people thought they were so superiour to the smokers and now their pleasure is under the hammer too, they don't like it.
In addition, some of us know what is further due to come down the line for the drinkers. We know, because some of us studiously check the Robert Wood-Johnson Foundation (RWJF) website and have discovered that that "philanthropical" organisation now spends as much on grants for alcohol prohibition as it does on anti-smoking. (For the benefit of the uninitiated, the RWJF is the "charitable arm of Johnson and Johnson.)
What sport we shall have Mr Pip!
Well it was only a matter of time. Most of us knew that the smoking ban would probably result in more drinking because those who preferred to stay at home to have a smoke with their drink would tend to drink more as there would be no measuring. Those that still go to pubs but cannot take drinks outside because of alcohol free zones and no outside area available, are more likely to drink more as they are advised not to leave their drinks when they go for a smoke because they may be spiked. Ergo, where people would drink and smoke and quite happily have their drink last them half an hour or more, because they cannot do the 2 together, they are drinking more. About time these nannies realised that actions cause reactions!
I also see that obesity is apparently more harmful than smoking! Well that, in my humble opinion, is yet another reaction to an uncalled for action. When smoking was banned in work places, like offices, which it has been for many years, weight became an issue for many as they turned to nibbles instead to help alleviate stress and anxiety. Now that is even more exacerbated. If the nannies just left people alone to get on with their own lives in the way they feel is right for them, I am sure we would not have as many health issues as we do now.
I agree with Blad on the subject of revelling in the squeals of dismay coming from the moaning minority.
That was after I'd stopped laughing over this being the lead story on BBC Breakfast News the same day Oz Clarke and James May were there to talk about their BBC2 wine programme.
When at my annual medical my doctor asks do you smoke, I ask him if he masturbates, he does not ask me if I smoke anymore. If he ask me how much I drink I ask him. Is your wife a lesbian, he does not ask me how much I drink anymore. Nuff said