And On It Goes

Now, apparently the Government want to ban people from licensed premises for up to two years if they've been a bit unruly with the drink.

Great. Pubs are closing at the rate of something around 5-10 a day and the Government wants to take away their best customers. They also want to take away the glasses.

Well, of course you want to make drinking less popular because people who have obviously never been to a pub in their life don't really like the idea of it. This being the UK the tale isn't quite as joined up as you'd like. Here's an article from an admittedly biased source that claims alcohol consumption is falling in the UK and has been for a while:

Other key indicators of overall UK alcohol consumption are:

• Alcohol consumption was six per cent lower in 2008 than in 2004 – 8.9 litres per head against 9.5 litres per head

• Consumption has fallen by 4.6 per cent since the introduction of the Licensing Act in 2005, resulting in a saving to the economy of £2.3 billion over the last three years.

• The current reduced level of consumption in 2008 could save the economy £8.0 billion over ten years, according to the Government’s own figures – even without any further decreases in consumption.

• Of 20 countries where comparable data is available, the UK ranks only 14th in alcohol consumption per head – well behind consumption levels in France and Germany.

I would put good money on this decline being sharper in certain areas and that what's preventing UK consumption dropping further down is the rise of the middle class wine drinker, who probably sees nothing much wrong in his bottle (or just half, if he's careful) of wine a day with dinner.

It seems to me that when you create big soulless city center pubs whose only function is to swap as much alcohol for as much money as they can make on a weekend, that it is inevitable that you are going rub all sorts of socially disfunctional people up against each other, many the sort of person who shouldn't be rubbed at all.

That closure rate means there's less choice and what's being closed are those pubs that have been squeezed by whichever middle-management chisellers bought them up after the Government decided that the breweries had a monopoly (something Private Eye have recently decided to point up, too late, so I guess Ian Hislop's favourite local must have fallen foul of Enterprise Inns or whoever). The soulless franchises are there for different reasons and, so, become the norm.

This leads to the odd idea that people are drinking less, though more in one go, in fewer, though bigger, pubs. Which actaully seems to point to a problem. That problem isn't the glass the pint comes in but a series of goverment policies that have lead to the hounding out of smaller, local pubs in favour of larger chain pubs, it is thus logical that the answer to that problem is to investigate the glassware.

The Cows Are Out To Get You

A post to scare my Mother:

The deaths of no fewer than four people after being trampled by cows in the past two months has prompted Britain's main farming union to issue a warning about the dangers of provoking the normally docile animals.

The Drugs Don't Work, But Placebos Do

If you, like me, are fascinated by the Placebo effect, then you'll be glad to know it's getting stronger or, perhaps, merely stranger:

By the late '90s, for example, the classic antianxiety drug diazepam (also known as Valium) was still beating placebo in France and Belgium. But when the drug was tested in the US, it was likely to fail. Conversely, Prozac performed better in America than it did in western Europe and South Africa. It was an unsettling prospect: FDA approval could hinge on where the company chose to conduct a trial.

Colours make a difference too. If you're looking for a pick-me-up then make sure you get the red placebo.

Also, I should really have heard of the "nocebo" before, despite finding that neologism quite ugly:

It also works in reverse to produce the placebo's evil twin, the nocebo effect. For example, men taking a commonly prescribed prostate drug who were informed that the medication may cause sexual dysfunction were twice as likely to become impotent

.

The Poster For An Upcoming Gig

I've got a template now and I'm not afraid to use it.

These photos were, mostly, taken at the last gig in Doherty's by Robert Unterfurtner. I've processed them a bit to give the main images something of a burnished quality. I'm not sure if I've overdone it by adding "drop-shadow" to the names, though, it seems very 90's but it does give the lettering some weight. I guess not all faddish things are bad...

A Question I May As Well Ask Here, Too

Is Ireland trying to become the worlds first Theme Country?

I guess it was partly the itinery -- Dublin, Knowth, Giant's Causeway, etc. -- but just in the way English pubs in the country became Country Pubs, Ireland seems to have slightly over done it on the horse brasses and ploughman's lunches to become, well, "Irish".

Not that it's a bad thing. There were many ways that Ireland reminds you it's not England. A complete lack of pork pies, for one and the fact that every pub had the same four or five beers. There's Guinness, of course, with the occasional Beamish to back it up, Harp, Carlsberg and Bulmers (or Magners) with an American beer, too, Bud or Coors mostly. In every damn bar that I went in, with the exception of Porter House in Dublin (well worth a visit, that place), it was exactly the same. Given that a decent pint of Guinness is its own reward I couldn't grumble too much, but some sort of CAMRA style action is sorely needed.

Speaking of sorely needed, only one place I went to the toilet at had a bog brush. Surely a nation where a thick black drink is their tipple of choice has to see that there is something wrong with this. Much flushing (possibly a bar I visited -- and the Dublin bars did seem to want to get together and form a poem The Flowing Tide, the Winding Stair etc.) is no substitute.

Me 'n' Me Mum

Apparently I can either smile or have my eyes open in a photograph, but not both.

And here's one of me with the BluesBerries, looking just a little less "chinny" than last time...

Cuteness Explodes

Lego Toy Story. I'm not going to buy any of this because my apartment couldn't handle the cuteness. But tell me this picture didn't make you go "awwwww".

Back From Hols, For The Moment

Posting will be back to regularly slipshod as soon as possible, meanwhile, here's a pic to keep you going.

Also, am I the only person to find it odd that this British "report" on how making your own sandwiches can save you money is illustrated with a very Austrian leberkase semmel (which is mostly likely bought from a shop)?

Some Videos

A couple of things caught my eye recently and one or two of them may not have been blogged so much:

• Becks & The Bullets: Last Waltz. I think this channels Cure-era Tim Pope quite a bit, but in a good way.


• The Krugman Blues ~ Loudon Wainwright III. Could only have been more aimed at me if the video was made in Lego.


• Brutal Legend first twenty minutes walkthrough. As narrated by Tim Schafer. I don't like heavy metal or Jack Black but this looks like it will rock!

On the Jack Black problem, I also liked Kung Fu Panda very much. Perhaps he's better as a voice over artist where you can't see his perpetual mugging and the animators tone him down a lot.

Austria, Second Most Violent Country In Europe

According to the Daily Mail, from this report, the UK is the most violent country in Europe, with Austria coming second. Meaning, I guess, my life is slowly becoming less violent. I should perhaps move to South Africa next, despite, er, it not being in Europe. Here's the chart:

I'm not sure when Canada was part of Europe either, but when you've got a point to prove I suppose these things don't matter.

Interestingly, and slightly under-reported in the article, the UK comes 13th in Europe in homocides and if I had to choose between a beating, robbery or being shot to death I guess I'd choose being robbed then being beaten with death a somewhat distant third.

It also gives something of a lie to that South African thing:

While the UK ranks above South Africa for all violent crime, South Africans suffer more than 20,000 murders each year - compared with Britain's 921 in 2007.

Hmmm.

As for the Austrian thing, the Overseas Security Advisory Council, which is something set up by Americans to protect Americans abroad says:

The crime rate in Austria is among the lowest in Europe. Violent crime is infrequent and is rarely directed against Americans. Most criminal activity is focused in large metropolitan areas.

And the American government takes the same tack:

Austria has one of the lowest crime rates in Europe, and violent crime is rare.

The odd thing here is that the figures in the above report taken at face value do bear some of this out. In Austria, in 2007, 133,546 incidences of violent crime were reported in a country with a population of 8,210,281 does give you around 1600 violent crimes per 100,000 people or, approximately, 7 or 8 per day in Linz and one per day in Steyr. Anecdotes aren't evidence but I doubt anyone in Austria believes this.

This may be, though, because:

Crime statistics are often better indicators of prevalence of law enforcement and willingness to report crime, than actual prevalence.

Now that I can believe in. Austrians may not commit much crime, but they sure are willing to report it.