Whinge Drinking

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Whinge Drinking
or just whinging.
14/03/09

Once more the government are planning to override their own bullshit anti-competition laws by trying to force a minimum price of 50p per unit of alcohol sold, which will apparently reduce alcohol consumption by 7%.
The truth is of course that it won't. People buy the cheapest alcohol because it's the cheapest. If the cheapest costs more money, it's still the cheapest and they'll still buy it, though in some cases they may have to take more desperate measures to get the money.

All this proposal will serve to achieve is to rip off the average household who enjoy drinking beer and wine (still legal, by the way) and are already struggling with huge hikes in the cost of food over the last year by putting an end to special offers on alcoholic drinks (no more three bottles of wine for the price of two or 18 bottles of lager for a tenner).

It also means shite wine will now cost a minimum of 4.50, so how will our wine moguls distinguish between the awful wine and the not so awful wine? By increasing all the prices of course. Or just possibly by no longer selling the shite wine, which might be nice but seems unlikely.

There's also some quack in Scotland claiming we should tax all products containing chocolate because apparently some people aren't aware that it's bad for them.

Obesity and alcoholism are society's problems, and I don't deny that they are serious, but taxing everyone because a section of the population can't control themselves is the equivalent of giving the whole class a detention because James M. put nails in Mr Lambert's coffee.

And speaking of competition (see first sentence), I see that Facebook has decided to attempt to alienate any remaining members (who didn't give up trying to make sense of it after the last overhaul) by trying to become a clone of Twitter, which is acknowledged by some at least to be incomprehensible bollocks that only serves to massage the egos of famous people. I have also noticed that Friends Reunited keeps emailing me to advertise Facebook or Myspace style additions to its services.

There will always be other popular social networking sites. It seems to me that the best way to survive in that particular competitive market is to be individual and offer something that the others do not. If they're all the same, why be a member of more than one? How incredibly boring.

Incidentally I just went on Friends Reunited to try to remind myself of James M.'s name, and it's rubbish - took ages to load and took over my computer with advertising. The thing above about the nails is only half the story and no harm came of the event. According to F.R. he's now in the Sussex police force.

Follow Dermot (MrsNicolaRain) on Twitter

Comments about This Article

99.99% of all statistics are wrong but do take many of us to publish, by not having a revoluion you are keeping me in a job, thanks. Comment By: One of the beaurocrats who runs earth, 19 Mar 2009, Rating: 5/5

I can drink through the hole punches in my folder head. Comment By: Joseph Fritzel, 17 Mar 2009, Rating: 5/5

I'll drink to that! Comment By: Paul Kettle, 17 Mar 2009, Rating: 5/5

Anyway Gordon Brown says it is a stupid idea now, so it turns out it's just the BBC doing their best to report bullshit as news to piss people off for no reason. Comment By: Nicola, 17 Mar 2009, Rating: 1/5

I enjoy a nice glass of red now and then. Comment By: Roger Tibbett, 16 Mar 2009, Rating: 5/5

What about my fucking coffee? It had nails in it? I drank that. I am now dead. Can someone update FR? Comment By: Mr. Lambert, 15 Mar 2009, Rating: 2/5

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