Drinking and Licensing

[karohemd]

A political post, whoa.

Last night I caught parts of the Panorama program about the drinking problems in inner cities with some very disturbing but realistic footage of drunken muppets.

The consensus seemed to be that extending the license will lead to even more drinking and the current situation will turn into a real nightmare.
I don't think so. Currently, everybody tries to get as much drinking in as possible before closing time. If that time is longer/later, it might not be that bad.

However, nobody on the program (at least not while I watched) saw the real problem that needs to be tackled: the people getting drunk.

The average pub in Germany closes at midnight, in cities even at 2 and later on weekends. Some big cities are even open 24 hours. Is there a major problem? No.
Of course, people drink but the whole "drinking until you fall over/don't know what you're doing" attitude seems to be a very British thing.

Just another typical example of trying to screw around with the symptons as apposed to looking at the causes.

I'll never understand this country.

Comments

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

There seems to be an underlying assumption that drunk=happy and more drunk = more happy, even though the same people who think this will assault people, fall over and injure themselves, cry hysterically etc when intoxicated. This seems to be programmed in from the early teens when hearing other people talk about how wonderful it is to be drunk.

It's a fantastic ability of the mind to do this: other examples include the illusion that having a baby will make a woman continuously happy despite not sleeping and having to spend all day every day with a being that has no capability to be interesting whatsoever, and the illusion that a car with a bigger engine will get you to your destination faster in any area of the country including the middle of London. People believe exactly what the media tell them and don't even know that's how it got there.

Hear hear

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

This attitude ingrained in the culture and that needs to be tackled.

"when hearing other people talk about how wonderful it is to be drunk".

*nods*
And this is what I don't get. I've been overly drunk in a way that I was missing bits of the night and threw up only once as it wasn't something I wanted to repeat. It's not fun in any way. Being tipsy is cool and nobody has any problems with that but as soon as you lose control over your behaviour, you need to stop.

I'm far from being teetotal but I know when to stop and it's very easy to do.