Scots are booziest in Britain
By Campbell hic! Gunn
SCOTS consume 25 per cent more alcohol per head than drinkers across the rest of Britain.
The average adult now drinks the equivalent of nearly 540 pints of beer or 46 bottles of vodka a year.
Startling new figures to be published today show that the 50.5 million litres of pure alcohol sold in Scotland in 2009 was enough for every drinker over 18 to exceed the weekly male drinking guidelines every week. The figures also suggest Scots are out-drinking their counterparts in the rest of Britain by an average of two-and-a-half pints or large glasses of wine per week.
EASY! for the old SCOTLAND! We've showed those SOFT SOUTHERN POOOOFTERS! WEARRAPEEPEL! Shove your MINIMUM PRICING UP YOUR BIG FAT LARDARSE SALMOND! CIRRHOSIS OF THE LIVER, HERE WE COME! You don't see us FALLING ABOUT PISHED AND FIGHTING!
Well not unless you work in A&E, you don't.
25 comments:
"The average adult now drinks the equivalent of nearly 540 pints of beer or 46 bottles of vodka a year."
Sae wha's heel-tappin'?
The recommended levels of alcohol consumption are fixed.
Some years ago a study was published in epidemiology regarding longevity and alcohol consumption.
The results were that, for men, the optimum alcohol consumption, assuming that you eat properly, is way above the government recommended and soon to be mandatory on pain of death, limits.
Why don't these aresewipe neo-prohibitionist just fuck off and die of some other disease that their surviving clones can pursue, like too much fresh air, Perrier water and Labour Party Politics?
Well done, DL, keep up the good work! ;-)
1.47 pints per day ?
Clearly we are all alkies .
Away and fling shite at yersel , DL !
Bugger, I would concur. I always said as long as you've had your chuck you can drink as much as you like, well within your capabilities that is. You very rarely se a fat wino. I rest my case!
Spidey, I'm your man.
Oli, I merely report what is written in the Post. Don't shoot the messenger as some Greek wanker once said. You have to remember that is an average throughout Scotland and obviously if you are matched with two non-drinkers that total goes up to 30.87 pints a week or 2.71 bottles of vodka.
There is a letter in the Sunday Torygraph which reads: "One person in Scotland is dying every three hours as a direct result of alcohol"
I've heard of the Resurrection, but this takes some beating!
Fred, unfortunately that is true. you can look at it two ways. Firstly that everyoneshould be responsible for their own lives and if they want to kill themselves with a legal drug, that's up to them or secondly that Alchoholism is a serious disease and we should stop kids starting to drink cheap cider and Alchopops by pricing them more expensively and thereby saving money for the NHS in the long run as well as stopping the premature deaths of thousands, like the Russians, another country with a serious drink problem, have done. As an ex very heavy drinker I think most people who read this shite on a regular basis know what camp I am in.
Were the Resurrection not a group in the 70s?
DL
There is no doubt that alcohol has blighted far too many lives. Not just the lives of those who suffer cirrhosis or premature death, but of their families too. But I think it is wrong to blame cheap booze alone. The French, Spanish and Greeks have all been selling very cheap alcohol for years without the same problems. Indeed, I seem to recall the reason Labour introduced 24 hour pubs was to encourage the same sort of sensible drinking culture that exists in France.
I believe the problem to be more social than economic. Nobody is surprised at the drinking problem in Russia - the people there suffered decades of oppression and drinking was the only vice available to them. In the UK we now have a lost generation thanks to the Stalinist policies of Gordon Brown as chancellor and now PM. What have young people got to look forward to? Working until they are 137 to pay off the debts we have incurred in their name? I sometimes wish I could drink more than my weekly glass of wine and fortnightly pint of cider to help forget the mess we are in!
The public have been spoon fed by a nanny state for so long now, that they have lost the ability to think for themselves, to distinguish between moderation and excess. And it’s not just booze. Smart arse economists blame the financial meltdown on an era of cheap money. That is complete rubbish. Most of us are responsible borrowers. The problem was caused by people whose properties were worth £100K but taking out a mortgage of £125K. Yes, blame the pushers for selling these mortgages, but nobody put a gun to the borrowers heads and said “you must take this loan”.
Far too many people simply do not understand the correlation between cause and effect. But that is no reason to punish the majority.
I don’t believe that pushing up the price of alcohol will solve the problem as that suggests people only drink because it’s cheap.
DL, you'll be thinking of this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFCoaNjZqUM
I dread to think who matches with me in that survey, he'll be drinking fuck all!
Fred, you make some good points. However i don't think your average binge drinker says to himself, "here I'm going to get pished tonight because the national debt is at 3187 billion and I'm going to have to work to 80 to pay it off. At least not in Scotland. 50 years ago when a bottle of whisky was the equivelent of £35 people didn't get pished to the same extent. When I started drinking in the 70s, people were not falling about when the pubs shut pished. I remember being in Doncaster in the early 90s and it was frightening when the pubs came out. First time I'd noticed it. But you even see it in Scotland now and I'm convinced that it is because at least in part to people getting pished before they go out on cheap booze they got from the supermarket. I mean what serious drinker is going to pay £3 for a shot of vodka when he can buy a bottle for £7 and drink half of it before he/she goes out?
Banned, I woulod say there is a whole family somewhere that's not drinking to make up for you!
DL, explain this if you will.
During a night out on the lash in Fort William some years ago we were being chatted at by some pissed up local who seemed to feel that he had 'won' the conversation with the following pithy phrase
" Listen te me son, I'm Scorttish, Ah get paid WEEKLY!"
WTF?
Banned, I think what he meant was that he was paid WEAKLY i.e. his remuneration levels were not quite what he desired. Either that or he was displaying working class pride that he was paid weekly and wasn't salaried. I think.
If the Scots, or anyone else, want to drink to ease the pain of living in semi-permanent nocturnal and economic gloom, then that’s fine by me, and I see it as their right.
What I want to know though, is who has the right to tell the Scots peasants that only rich Saxons like Salmond can get drunk?
After all only the stupidest numpty wouldn’t realise that that is what increasing alcohol tax is actually saying.
When I was a kid (and as you say whisky was the equivalent of £35 a bottle) the favourite drink north of Dumfries was “red biddy”; a tasty little concoction based on Meths and boot polish. It was very therapeutic and kept your inner tubes squeaky clean even if your poo did come out looking like a rather over dunked charcoal biscuit. The alkies drank it because it was all they had to take themselves away from reality.
In Glasgow, at the moment, you can get a wrap of H for aboot £3.50, street price, and so putting up alcohol prices without introducing the death penalty for drug dealing will just end up in a bunch of red haired junkies roaming the streets looking for the next “addictive fix”to take them away from the pain of being Scots; brilliant, another example of the stupid – posh political class do-gooders creating, what are to them, unforeseen circumstances.
You lot elected the man, it’s your problem; the English middle and upper classes (something that doesn't exist N of the border) can afford to drink, and most of us don’t pretend to care about the peasants anyway.
Another brilliant idea, I forgot tae mention, that might solve yer problem.
Ye need a few litres of Grape juice, a small amount of sugar and yeast, a big pan, a wok, a glass and some running water and you can make yer own hooch. Strong enough tae turn yer sporran inside oot and make the harpies look bonnie.
Double the pleasure of getting pished and avoidin the duty too.
While yer at it put central heatin oil in yer banger and stick twa fingers up at the Government.
All in the finest traditions of the Highlands – claim it’s a cultural thing and get awa wi it as aboriginal reets.
Job done.
Stouters, I think you and many other people are missing the point about the cheap alcohol. It's really got nothing to do with keeping the drink off the poor. At £0.40/unit it will make fuck all difference to a bottle of wine. There are weans all over Scotland getting pished on cheap cider and alcopops and they will be the ones who will have problems in later life. I went down that route drinking Special Brew and Lanliq when I was 15 or 16 and I have had problems with drink after drinking 'like a fish' for 30 years. Although i have managed to 'screw the nut' now it could have been a close thing. I came from and consider m yself to be middle class as my father had his own business, as did I. Being a squaddie and presumably working or let's face it, lower class, it is good to see that you have been able to drag yourself up and educate yourself to a certain degree.
Speaking of boot polish, did you hear about the Alchy who drunk furniture polish, terrible death but a lovely finish.
Making wine is no use to a Scotsman as we would drink it before the yeast has worked.
Stouters, sorry I forgot to mention the Heroin use. I don't have any knowledge of drugs apart from a few spliffs years ago, so it's not really fair of me to comment. However I do know about alcohol and indeed would probably consider myself an expert. Although that is nothing to boast about, although I would have thought it was at one time.
DL, not wishing to correct you on your own blog, but I suspect you would be surprised to find how many Gentlemen have served Her Majesty as “Rankers”. In fact I would be willing to bet that there are rather more Gents in the ranks than there are in the Officers Mess (where you find hardly any these days).
Hey ho though and on with the stream of consciousness (you do strike me as being a bit of the Tristram Shandy of the Celtic fringe).
The only folks that will stap a bairn drinkin is it’s Ma and Da. As that closet Scot Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, of Paisley Terrace, Edinburgh said – educashion, educashion, educashion but it doesn’t seem to have happened. A child must be taught to walk upright, to ride a bike, to catch a ball and to speak a language – these things don’t fall from the sky and in the same way children can be taught not to start drinking Vodka rather than the Iron Bru. Parents, Police, Publicans, Shopkeepers, teachers and the public should all make sure that children don’t get access to booze in the same way they stop them driving cars and flying planes – it is all about everyone sticking to the same objective and society pulling together in it’s own interest.
It’s the culture and you don’t change that by putting the tax up. It’s always been the culture and I think it must be in the genes but responsible adults should stop the kids ruining their lives and swing the pendulum back to where it was in more disciplined times.
Stouters, not wanting to correct me on my own blog. Fuck me, it's hasn't stopped you up to now!
In fact if you don't stop making intellegent points on this blog, I may have to moderate you. Tristram Shandy? No. I think anyone who knows me would describe me more as a Churchill, make mine a large Brandy.
You are correct in saying that society should deal with the upbringing of the younger generation, but weans wouldn't be weans if they didn't rebel. I bet though that you were a little Lord Fauntleroy! I can just imagine you in your sailor suit or probably in your case a Japanese General's outfit.
The problem is when their parents can't install a sense of discipline that stops them getting pished and being either destructive or violent then society at large has to step in and as with all rules there are people caught in the net who shouldn't be there.
Dark, I have just realised that I have forgotten to question the statistics and ask who prepared them.
One thing I know is that they are likely to be drastically inaccurate.
There are 5 millions of adults in Scotland – say 66% are adults, thats 3.3 millions; multiply that by 46 (number of bottles drunk in a year) and you get 152 million bottles.
If each bottle is 70cl then that is 106 million litres of hooch or 21 million gallons.
A gallon weighs 10lbs so that is 210 million lbs or 94,000 tons of grog. Thats 63 lbs or half a hundredweight for each adult in Scotland. That means 2,500 38 ton truck trips on the road, 6 a day for 7 days a week.
If you reckon that maybe 25% don’t drink at all that puts the weight up commensurately.
I don’t believe it – and if it were true just think of the good liftin all that weight is doing the adult population.
Keep on topping, just think of the good it’s doing your muscles.
The point is we should not just read and believe – we have to think about the underlying facts whenever the Government speaks!
I forgot to mention that 152 millions of bottles at £72 duty per case of 12 is £1 billion of tax revenue fer theiven Gordon.
Now who is subsidising the NHS - the English taxpayer or the drunken Scots?
Stouters, Going on your figures and at this point I won't dispute them except to say that the 2,500 x 38 ton trucks are per year. So if we divide that by say 360 days that is less then 7 per day. There are trucks leaving some distilleries almost daily. I know there is a Bond in Dumbarton where the trucks are queueing up to get loaded. That will be us subsidising you with booze as well as oil!
Souters, sorry I meant to say, they were supposed to be corrolated between the Drinks Industry and the HMRC.
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