David Davis

Police “chiefs” complain about “24-hour drinking”. I don’t know about you, but I don’t tend to come across binge-drinkers blind-drunk at say 10.40 am in the morning. Or even 7.55 am. Or 2.14 pm. Do you, or I, or does anybody you know, or have ever seen, drink for 24 hours a day? No, I thought not.

No. The problem is not that this guvmint has relaxed the licensing laws. This is a sound move and takes away the smell of distrust of the British people, imposed on them since WW1, when it was thought that without these we would be too drunk to make shells properly. it is an unconscionable piece of farm-animalery to suggest that a sane man ought not to be able to buy a beer at 6.40 in the morning, or at any time it pleases him so to do….and drink it too. When I used to drive to what was then called Czechslovakia, one regularly stopped one’s fast car after about 16 hours from London, at a roadside caff in Plzen or Stribro in West Bohemia, and you could have a large Becherovka, or a Vyskov-11 (about a pint or more) with your coffee.

The autobahn probably goes round those places now…and I expect that the dear Czech Police would string me up for what I have just said…but it was 1991-92 and all was new and bright, and the West had won, and people were happy, and the girls just wanted to have us…..

No, the problems lie elsewhere:-

(1) This is a coolish and nearly-always-damp island, in which one surviving pleasure is to crawl into your mud hut in the late afternoon with mates, soddden and muddy and shitty after a day in the fields slding about in the cowpoo, and down a few beers or more and joke about how the Bail-Reeve fell into the worst and deepest pile. The British drink alcohol regularly in industrial amounts: it is our job.

(2) Sex is not that great any more as a substitute for alcohol, unless you are

(a) very lucky with one or a few wenches well known to yourself, or else,

(b) the Feminazi revolution has somehow passed you by.

(3) If this guvmmint wanted socialism in a post-capitalist-civilisation and therefore (it would have to create) a de-educated populace, which it has tried personfully to bring into being, and which it could push about like in 1984, then it has succeeded. This populace will behave like irresponsible farm-animals, because that’s what it has been forced to become (the responsible ones are all dead.)

If you treat people like children, and deny them knowledge and understanding, then unsocialised children is what you will get. (You will probably have to ban guns, knives…lasers ( a new one, to be advanced for a ban at a local newspaper near you, and soon…..see the Southport Visiter! And yes thatt iz how itt izz spelled!)…..airguns…..kitchen-knives, soon?…..to stop them murdering each other, let alone you and your apparatchiks……) (“Nobody hurt in milk float crash”)

(4) If it thought it could raise alcohol excise duty takes by lengthening opening hours, then it is probably right. The overall sterling value of revenue has probably risen – that’s poss why it can afford to nationalise the Banks (paid for mostly by poor-people – could not the National Lottery have done it? More appropriate….)

People who are going to get rat-arsed in public, are going to do it in the early-to-late-evening, as they always would have been and have been able to do. So I think the rozzers have got the wrong end of the stick somehow.

Ireland is apparently a backwards country (again).
Is Ireland going backwards though, really?

Rather than follow European counterparts who begin to realise binge drinking and street trouble may be lessened, actually lessened, by looser drinking laws (not to mention cooling off ‘rush hour’ 2AM city taxi queues and all manner of issues the drivers keep complaining about), Ireland tightens laws and chucks everyone out of pubs and clubs at the same (early) time.
Not just that, but there’s no booze to be bought to take home after 10PM.
(That’s just alcohol – drug-busting is also a major priority for law enforcement, and they’re apparently doing well.)

Not only that, but as the younger generations finally open minds and look beyond the confines and strictness of the Catholic Church, the government rule that the contraceptive pill, (which has been around, acceptably, for decades in Ireland) be available now only at full price – no longer discounted for welfare/medical card holders.

They’re also steadily declining access to third level education for those who can’t afford it.

Backwards country, no?

No?

No.

Ireland’s powers that be are planning an army.

First, deprive the poor of education.
Statistically speaking, it’s mostly the poverty stricken who turn to drink (and drugs).
Statistically speaking, it’s mostly the poverty stricken who procreate at a significantly high rate.

Here’s the logic:
We’ve all experienced sex after a long night of drinking…

No cheap drink after 10PM + No cheap contraceptives + No education for the off-spring = a huge generation of thick-as-fuck (but sober!) desperates with a poverty stricken, cut-throat mentality.

Ta da!

I have to admit that this one caught me unawares. However, this business of not being able to buy alcohol after 10pm in supermarkets or off-licenses is frankly ridiculous. The idea is to curb excessive drinking by us booze-hound Paddies. Apparently.

However, let us call a keg a keg here. Anyone mad to get their hands on drink will modify their shopping habits accordingly. Have no fear of that. This is an inconvenience, nothing more, for them. Life, as they know it, will go on as before.

Moreover, pubs still remain open. In truth, they ought to do even more business now, which is good news for vintners who have suffered the consequences in recent years (the poor lambs) of excessively raising their prices. Instead, more and more punters opt to enjoy themselves at home and buy their drink for less from off licensed premises. How fortunate, indeed, for one of the lobbying groups that Fianna Fail pays serious attention to.

Indeed, I just do not understand how one form of alcohol distribution can have their right to make a livelihood curbed when another does not.

Moreover, once this legislation “beds down”, who knows, the grasping publicans may get even better news when the closing time is then brought back to 9pm! For the good of our health. Of course.

Accordingly, the ordinary joe like me, who frequently works long days, thanks to having to meet deadlines, and who then thinks that it might be nice to have a beer and some music with the feet up at home before retiring for the evening gets penalised. I am not making this up. Twice in the past couple of weeks I have been hit by this – mostly because I had better things to be thinking of beforehand. On Tuesday evening, a guy clearly coming back from an evening’s healthy sporting activity was equally left frustrated.

Now, the obvious remark is probably why do I not modify my habits accordingly. However, why should I? If I want to throw a house party, I will plan accordingly. On the other hand, if I feel like a random beer or two of an evening, I tend not to call a meeting of my council of advisors to assess strategies on how I should go about purchasing them.

Yes, there are bigger problems in the world and I can cope without those occassional couple of beverages. However, all I want to know is why are my rights to carry out a responsible purchase being constrained when I completely fail to see how this leads to genuine positive changes in our society?

Unless you are a somewhat richer publican on the back of it, of course. Or, better still, a re-elected Fianna Fail deputy with that dirty big pay cheque, which my tax euros pays for, to look forward to.

Besides, who are the political party of GV Wright, Jim McDaid, and Christy O’Sullivan to tell any of us what constitutes the mature consumption of alcohol?