Wednesday 11 January 2012

The Truth Is Out There

Sorry to pinch the X Files tag line, but getting the truth out of lobby groups and indolent media hacks really can be as exhaustive as discovering alien encounters these days.

They still leave little clues lying around, mind. Like this, from Sunday's BBC article on incorrigible gin-soaked pensioners.

Older people are much more likely to drink every day than those of other ages, according to an NHS study into alcohol use.

While the rest of the population is drinking slightly less, and slightly less often on average, this is not the case for older people, it said.
They can use qualifiers if they like, but less can only mean less, and has been lessening for quite a while now.

ONS General Lifestyle Survey 2008:

Following an increase between 1998 and 2000, there has been a decline since 2002 in the proportion of men drinking more than 21 units a week, on average, and in the proportion of women drinking more than 14 units.
ONS General Lifestyle Survey 2009:

This trend seems to be continuing under the new methodology; between 2006 and 2009 the proportion of men drinking more than 21 units a week fell from 31 per cent to 26 per cent and the proportion of women drinking more than 14 units a week fell from 20 per cent to 18 per cent.
What's more, if all the oldies are not only intransigently refusing to change their lifestyles to fit in with the trendy church of public health, but doing the opposite instead, and consumption is still on the wane, that must mean the young are reducing their levels by an even greater degree. No?

Well, yes, actually.


Despite changing the way unitary intake is measured to make consumption appear worse, young men definitely - and arguably all young people taken as a whole - are still drinking less of those units than they were in 1992.

This'll be the irresponsible, binge-drinking, liver-diseased, perennially-sozzled alky section of society who are driving the crisis level booze epidemic we keep hearing about, and for which we require acres of illiberal and collective punishment style primary legislation to solve.

Seems a bit odd, that. Where are Mulder and Scully when you need them, eh?


11 comments:

Bucko said...

When I was in the pub trade I met scores of old people who would come in early doors. Most just for the compay, buy some to take the edge of their arthritis or other ailments.

Let's be a caring society and take this away from them shall we. It's for their own good after all.

The Filthy Engineer said...

I'm afraid that I'm buggering up their stats in a slight way. I regularly consume more than 21 units per week. And I refuse to take two days off either. The distilleries need me.

*Sips large glass of whisky*

Anonymous said...

"This'll be the irresponsible, binge-drinking, liver-diseased, perennially-sozzled alky section of society who are driving the crisis level booze epidemic"

It's our MPs, isn't it, bingeing their way through booze subsidised by us?

Jay

Anonymous said...

I've just visited the site of the producers of quality apple juice. It seems they also make cider. Before entering the on-line 'shop' I was required to give my age. I simply e-mailed them asking what law says I have to do that. Afterwards I checked the on-line site of a brewer. It seems they do not need to know my age, although I did not go so far as logging in. There is ongoing mission creep in all this: for instance having to 'look' over 25 to buy tobacco products. This kind of compliance just gives the crocodile zealots a fiercer appetite. Lleweton (aged 76)

Anonymous said...

I know and so does my cat ,Harold,
why thousands of the elderly are getting pissed in their front rooms
far more often than 5 or 6 years ago.
They have been driven there by
arrogant politicians , lobby groups
and last but not least the limp
wristed ,shuffling ,cringing creeps
who run and frequent the God forsaken half dead Taverns where once the elderly found some solace in their last few years.
Where are all the heroes?
Where have they all gone ?


Still waiting

Anonymous said...

Although it’s satisfying to be able to catch the Prohibitionist fibbers out in this early stage of their game (oh, how they must hate we smokers who have memories!), I actually find it a bit worrying that alcohol consumption is going down, because to me it’s an indication that quite a lot of people have been taken in by the early scare stories about alcohol and the mythical “safe limits” mantra and, like the early givers-up of smoking, have started the ball rolling towards the day when – just like with smoking – the tipping-point is reached whereby non-drinkers outnumber the drinkers, thus paving the way for the next step: the “now you’re hurting everyone else” scenario. And we all know where that leads, don’t we, boys and girls?

Drinkers, it seems, look well set to go down precisely the same route as smokers, for all the same reasons. But at least we smokers could say that we were the first and hadn’t seen it happen to someone else; drinkers don’t have that excuse - far from it. If they don’t get their act together and join forces with the smokers (who, after all, are the only people who know what to expect next) to roll back this Prohibitionist juggernaut, then, they'll make all the same mistakes we did, put forward all the same easily-dismissed arguments, fall prey to the same social and personal pressures from their ex-drinking families and their brainwashed anti-drinking children, and - sooner than they imagine - they’ll be sitting outside their smoke-and-alcohol-free "pubs" with the smokers whilst all those fizzy-water-sipping non-smokers sit inside complaining that they can't sit in the sun because of "all the drunks out there."

Sam Duncan said...

“Older people are much more likely to drink every day than those of other ages, according to an NHS study into alcohol use.”

Why is the National Elf surprised about this when it's been going around telling heart patients that a daily glass of wine is good for them for the last 20 years?

Ian R Thorpe said...

The Pissed Pensioners story has been running some time. A few years ago I blogged on The Pisssed Pensioners of Harrogate.

To their eternal credit it seems they are still knocking it back.

Anonymous said...

I live in the north east.The ex miner/shipyard blokes are a real hoot.They drink unknown amounts of booze nobody counts.Smoke at least one cig per pint and enjoy life to the full.They are down the club most nights as her in doors is whatchin her soaps.They are a dying breed old age is killing em seventy most of them.they do not slag the workshy young ones as they know NO BLOODY JOBS .There jokes and humour is unmatched every politician should spend a year with them The nowt knew under the sun approach MAY HELP A FEW

Lyn said...

Bang on Bucko - the smoking ban did that and soon, no doubt, off licences and supermarkets will be ordered to limit the amount of drink anyone can buy per day which will, automatically, for a lot of pensioners mean their small remaining pleasure will be slashed as many can only get to the shops once a week due to distance and the lack of public transport services in many areas!

These ugly, wrinkeled, enjoyment hating puritans will soon ensure they are killing off every bit little bit of anything that just might have an element of enjoyment in it!

It is cowardly, corrupt and dispicable. I truly hope they will very soon all choke on their own bile!

Lyn said...

Sam Duncan - the National Elf do not have a clue what they are talking about, they just go with the scripts they are given, especially when they are told 'it is the best for people and will save the Nationla Elf billions!'

Just like politicians, it seems, they are unable to think for themselves or even conduct or understand proper scientific investigations. I am sure that a single cell omeaba (can't spell it!) has more commons sense than these morons.