Booze

So, I seem to recall that smoking has a protective effect against Alzheimer’s. Of course, I can’t recall where I saw that (Ahahahahaha). Also, that it’s not just that smokers die before they live long enough to get Alzheimer’s.

But clearly telling every Granny to start smoking isn’t going to fly as a treatment.

Except, vaping. So, nicotine intake – which I guess is the protective thing? – without all the tars, sounds like a plan.

At which point, don’t we have something of a problem here? For I cannot imagine any ethics committee being willing to allow such research. Even the suggestion would have pearls clutched.

Which is, perhaps, a problem in trying to actually find out, no?

Vaping may be damaging the heart in a similar way to smoking, according to research.

Scientists have found that people who vape experience a spike in their heart rate as well as their blood pressure in a similar way to people who smoke traditional cigarettes.

Nicotine affects the heart rate – it’s a stimulant. We knew that, right?

Health campaigners are attempting to block prominent displays of wine and beer in supermarkets this Christmas after stores were banned from promoting biscuits and advent calendars under new anti-obesity rules.

Activists are piling pressure on grocers to rule out bringing more alcoholic drinks into high traffic areas in the stores, saying it risked acting as a “dangerous trigger for people recovering from alcohol dependence”.

No, really, fuck off.

Go build your temperance display with the Methodists – that pile of Christmas Turnips – and leave the rest of us to our wassail.

G’on, git.

It’s possible to make wine from just about any liquid that contains sugar, right? Sorta, at least.

So, it’s possible to make orange wine (no, not qhite grape wine where the skins are left in for a bit, but wine from oranges). Further, if you can make wine then it’s possible to make a brandy.

There are orange brandies and triple sec and so on. But none of them are an eau de vie properly made from the original fruit. They’re all varied types of booze with orange added.

So, why isn’t orange brandy made?

Human experience is such that someone must have tried – we’re in a reverse Chesterton’s Fence here, our question is why the thing doesn’t exist. So, why doesn’t it work?

Millions were drinking at harmful levels while stuck at home during lockdown, and alcohol-caused deaths – mostly from liver disease – soared to a 20-year high in 2020.

Therefore we know he’s spouting bollocks. No more need be said.

The proportion of adults drinking at risky levels also increased from 25.6 per cent to 32.9 per cent during the pandemic. Among over-65s, those drinking at risky levels increased from 15.6 per cent to 21.6 per cent.

Those aged 25 to 34 increased their drinking the most on average, the study found, but older groups were consuming more alcohol before the pandemic.

Pre-pandemic, over-65s who were risky drinkers consumed an average 13.93 units per week compared with 9.78 for 25 to 34-year-olds.

During lockdown, those figures rose to 13.96 for over-65s and 10.89 for 25-34s – an 11 per cent increase for the younger group.

They’re then predicting 25l extra deaths. But this level of drinking is protective from all cause mortality. It’s only up around 40 units a week that it becomes, in itself, dangerous.

So, bullshit.

The study, published in the Lancet, found that 59% of those who drank harmful amounts were aged 15-39 – people for whom alcohol provided no health benefit and posed risks, including injuries relating to drinking or car accidents, suicides or murders. Three-quarters of harmful drinkers were men.

Well, yes, the things that alcohol is protective against tend to be diseases of age, don’t they? Therefore among the young you’ll not see the benefits, only the costs.

They found that for men aged 15-39, the recommended amount of alcohol before “risking health loss” was just 0.136 of a standard drink a day. For women of the same age, the “theoretical minimum risk exposure level” was 0.273 drinks – about a quarter of a standard drink a day.

For adults of 40 and older without any underlying health conditions, drinking a small amount of alcohol was linked to some health benefits, such as reducing the risk of ischaemic heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

Among those aged 40-64, safe alcohol consumption levels ranged from about half a standard drink a day to almost two standard drinks. For those aged 65 or older, the risks of “health loss from alcohol consumption” were reached after consuming a little more than three standard drinks a day.

And how have they pulled out those who did not drink when young, but did when older? To see whether the effects of drinking while young provided benefits when older?

First impressions here would be that this is Tosh. We’ll wait for Mr. Snowdon’s analysis to confirm that thought…..

A flagship SNP health policy failed to curb problem drinking but forced alcoholics to go without food, a major study has found.

Scotland became the first country in the world to introduce minimum unit pricing (MUP) for alcohol in May 2018, currently fixed at 50p per unit.

But in a landmark report on the effectiveness of the policy, researchers from Sheffield and Newcastle universities found “no clear evidence” it dissuaded alcoholics from drinking.

In some cases, heavy drinkers spent up to 29 per cent less on food, utility bills and other items, according to data collected from 100,000 participants.

We could – and some did – predict this from the start using really very basic economic principles……

Older women who enjoy a regular tipple have a better quality of life than those who abstain, or drink at very low levels, research suggests.

The study of 628 patients undergoing elective surgery found that women who drink at least twice a week were happier with their lot than those who had little or no alcohol.

The research looked at quality of life of patients aged 60 and over before and after surgery, checking for mobility, anxiety and depression, and levels of comfort.

The study found little difference between men, regardless of their drinking habits, before surgery.

But afterwards, those who enjoyed a drink fared better for quality of life, compared with peers who avoided alcohol as they recovered from operations.

Or even, a little of what you fancy does you good.

One of life’s little amusements is observing how some will absolutely latch onto the folk cures of some other society and yet resolutely condemn those of their own. Some wizened hag promoting some jungle leaf is fawned over, our own society’s glass of sherry is dismissed.

Eighteen-year-old Americans can’t drink. Why can they buy assault rifles?
Ross Barkan

Lower the drinking age then.

Overweight people should be given lower drinking limits, scientists have said, after research found alcohol does them more harm.

Current government advice says men and women should not drink more than 14 units a week, the equivalent of about six pints of beer or standard glasses of wine.

But researchers said the findings, from a study of 400,000 adults in Britain, should be used to cut limits for the two in three adults who are overweight or obese.

The thought that any of us actually listen to these limits. That they’re actually something that is adhered to.

It’s entirely true that some don’t drink, some do, but the number who do or don’t because of the 14 unit advice is zero.

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Citigroup is setting up an office for junior investment bankers in Málaga, where staff will work shorter hours, in an attempt to attract talent that might otherwise be deterred by the industry’s infamously poor work-life balance.

The American bank said that it had picked the southern Spanish city on the Costa del Sol because it presented “a unique and compelling lifestyle proposition”.

Also, if it offers a “unique and compelling lifestyle proposition” remind me not to consider moving there. What attracts young bankers isn’t quite what attracts me….

Cutting back on final drink of day ‘could improve brain health’
Study of UK adults shows negative effects of alcohol consumption grow stronger with each additional drink

Things happen at the margin, do they?

Blimey.

I think we’ve a local around here who can advise:

Talking to the Guardian under a pseudonym, Naamcial says he would like to operate a legal brewery, but Thailand’s laws around alcohol production make this ambition almost impossible for newcomers. Current laws restrict brewing licences to manufacturers that have capital of 10 million baht (£230,000), while brewpubs must produce at least 100,000 litres a year and only serve their beer on their premises. The legislation effectively blocks new, small breweries from opening, and tips the market firmly in favour of two powerful companies – Thai Beverage, which produces Chang beer, and Boon Rawd Brewery, which produces Singha and Leo.

So, you can’t start small and grow, you’ve got to leap to volume immediately. Which means there might – might – be that gap for someone who can leap to volume. 200,000 pints a year sold through one’s own premises. 550 pints a day, day in, day out. 250 folk coming in for a couple each. That’s a big pub you’ve got to have. But it’s possible, plenty of places in London (yes, I know, entirely different market etc) that do that.

So, when do we start?

It added: “The evidence is clear: any level of alcohol consumption can lead to loss of healthy life. Studies that claim otherwise are based on purely observational research, which fails to account for other factors, such as pre-existing conditions and a history of alcoholism in those considered to be ‘abstinent’.

Complete, utter and total bollocks.

There is a well known – and entirely obvious in the numbers – J Curve here. Moderate drinking is associated with – to put it as weakly as possible – longer lifespans than either teetotalism or heavy drinking. The only point that needs to be discussed is the definition of “moderate” which is, in fact, substantially higher than that 14 units a week nonsense.

Absolutely any other result is the result of prodnose tosspottery.

Mr. Snowdon will be along soon to give you the details.

Hopes that EU ‘hangover’ will be cured with pints of sparkling wine
Ministers are pushing for a return of the imperial measurement for fizz favoured by Winston Churchill and vintners alike

Champagne, as fizz, only exists because of English advances in glass and bottle making. So, righteously, should be pints all the way.

Indeed Martin, the “king of cool” for a generation of Americans, was putting on a act when he prowled the stage swigging whisky, smoking cigarettes and singing songs, He also sang Little Old Wine Drinker Me. Often, and unknown by fellow Rat Pack members Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr, his tumbler was full of nothing stronger than cider.

We can imagine how bad it would have been of the whole lot had been done on scrumpy…..

“Drinking — that was his gimmick”, his daughter Deana, who is also a singer, told the New York Post. “There’s no way he could have done that body of work [while drinking].” The “whisky” in the glass was actually apple cider, Martin’s Ocean’s 11 co-star Henry Silva said.

The thing being that to Americans “cider” is more a sorta non-alcoholic, curdled, apple juice. What we over here call cider is to them “hard cider”. And of course scrumpy doesn’t exist. As it doesn’t anyway out of that sacred and divine area roughly from Pilton to Priddy.

People who are very fit, healthy and active are more likely to be heavy drinkers because they feel their exercise habits entitle them to an alcoholic reward, a study suggests.

They find that people who are fit (able to run well on a treadmill it seems) are more likely to drink heavily than those who are not. More than 14 units is much more common among the fit than the sorta fit and the unfit.

The academics suggest that the correlation between alcohol intake and running ability might be due to the fact people who are exercising regularly are more inclined to give themselves a reward. However, it may also be down to the fittest people also having addictive personalities and exercise and drinking may both be symptoms of the same core personality trait.

Actually, the simplest explanation is that more than 14 units makes you healthy. Which, odd as it may sound to those steeped in modern medicine, is actually true. All causes risks of death etc are higher for teetotallers, lower for boozers and only go back to reaching teetotal levels at proper toper levels, 40 units a week and up sorta thing.

That is, the old wisdom of partaking moderately of grain and grape is good for you is true. All that’s changed is that the modern prodnoses are getting to define what “modestly” means.

Adieu gin, au revoir roast beef! How Hogarth became a proud European

Well, sorta. What the article actually points out is that Hogarth looked at what Johnny Foreigner was doing, nicked the good bits and rejected the rest of that Johnny Foreign stuff.

This being entirely different from the modern definition of becoming “European” which is to junk all the stuff we do well and copy only the idiocies of J Foreign. Roman law is not an advance upon Common but that’s what we were being forced into, just as the one example.

It’s also a bit difficult to claim as properly European someone who penned these lines:

Beer, happy Produce of our Isle

Can sinewy Strength impart,

And wearied with Fatigue and Toil

Can cheer each manly Heart.

Labour and Art upheld by Thee

Successfully advance,

We quaff Thy balmy Juice with Glee

And Water leave to France.

Genius of Health, thy grateful Taste

Rivals the Cup of Jove,

And warms each English generous Breast

With Liberty and Love!