Scotland A Testing Ground Again!

[rik_uk3]

Hahahahaha, it is but we're allowed to walk and canoe where we want then fall down drunk. Kindly passing strangers traditionally used to cover us with bin bags as sheets thus inventing the basha/tarp...



Again, correct, more real men should try it...

Liam

I've tried skirts Liam, they are OK, the wife had no problems...then she found out I was using her makeup as well as her skirts and went ballistic.

All this talk of Monks and I'm now torn between two strong urges, flagellation or nipping out to Tesco's for a bottle of Benedictine; I hope the drink urge wins.

 

[Retired Member southey]

I prefer Sanatogen

 

[Maggot]

I've tried skirts Liam, they are OK, the wife had no problems...then she found out I was using her makeup as well as her skirts and went ballistic.

All this talk of Monks and I'm now torn between two strong urges, flagellation or nipping out to Tesco's for a bottle of Benedictine; I hope the drink urge wins.

You'll be fine. Put on a surplus KF shirt and get a few drinks your neck. Penance and salvation all in one easy go

 

[Martyn]

Martyn, I don't think I've made myself clear, and I apologise for that, but the drinking of the Buckfast is one issue, the damage caused by the glass bottles the cheap and lethal stuff comes in, is entirely another.

No one asked the monks to stop brewing, they were asked to change the bottles that were sent to the off-licences and the wholesalers. No one objected to the glass ones being retained for sale to visitors to the abbey.

The cheap cider and other such drinks already comes in plastic bottles, and much though we decry the littering and pollution, it really does mean less injuries. The same reasoning as glass tumblers in pubs on match days and the like.

Yeah, I get that. But it's the same issue whether you are talking about the glass bottles or the drink itself. You are asking the monks to solve the problem for you. They are not going to do that, their product is being abused, not used. They didnt make it for the neds to abuse and it's not an issue anywhere else. If they were to start bottling in plastic, they would be accepting responsibility for their product being the cause of social problems in Scotland and it isnt, it's just the poison of choice. You are targeting the wrong people, ask your government to pass legislation on the sale of fortified wines and beers making it mandatory that all are sold in plastic. If your government wont do that, why should the monks? Bottom line, it's not Buckfasts problem, it's Scotlands problem. The Scottish government doesnt have to allow it, the Scottish retailers dont have to sell it and the Scottish people dont have to drink it. There is a whole chain there where the issue can be dealt with internally. It's your attachment of blame and responsibility to external factors that I have issue with. It's like you are saying the whole of Scotland is a powerless and passive victim of some kind of conspiracy from English Benedictine monks, to get Scottish neds drunk and glass each other - it's nonsense.

 

[santaman2000]

Yeah, I get that. But it's the same issue whether you are talking about the glass bottles or the drink itself. You are asking the monks to solve the problem for you. They are not going to do that, their product is being abused, not used. They didnt make it for the neds to abuse and it's not an issue anywhere else. If they were to start bottling in plastic, they would be accepting responsibility for their product being the cause of social problems in Scotland and it isnt, it's just the poison of choice. You are targeting the wrong people, ask your government to pass legislation on the sale of fortified wines and beers making it mandatory that all are sold in plastic...

That's the point I was making regarding deposits on the bottles. They can be made mandatory by government (at a national or local level)

 

[Toddy]

Martyn it's not just a Scottish problem, anywhere where it's bought in quantity it's an issue. It's not the monks fault that folks buy what they make, it's not the monks fault that they're trying to make a profit. It's greatly to their discredit that they won't help ameliorate the issues that their glass bottles cause.

Think on it like coca cola; they removed the cocaine *and* they now bottle it in plastic and aluminium cans, and keep the glass ones for the folks who pay a premium for them.

I asked the local shopkeeper a wee while ago about deposits on bottles. He said, "I hated those bottles. Filthy things, we had to store, we had to return, we had to lay out cash on up front. Anybody could bring a bottle in and we had to give them the money, even if we hadn't sold the bottle. If we refused we faced the aggro. Not worth the bother. Glad they did away with it."
So I suspect that that idea's not going to work.

The leg tags ? I think Shambling Shaman's original comment was along the lines of, 'here we go again, we're the guinea pigs for yet another bright spark's social initiative '

Richard, we haven't seen your legs, so we can't comment on how good you'd look in a kilt, but a man of your years should go easy on the make up.....mutton dressed as lamb's not a good look

cheers,
M

 

[Martyn]

It's greatly to their discredit that they won't help ameliorate the issues that their glass bottles cause.

Glass bottles dont glass people, people glass people. Just like guns dont shoot people, people shoot people. It's not to their discredit that they are ignoring this, because it's ridiculous. The ultimate conclusion to this rationale, would be to have everyone in Scotland eating with plastic cutlery, drinking from plastic cups and bottles, looking through plastic windows and then when everything is made from plastic, your neds will still be stabbing each other with pointed sticks. Eventually you will realise that whatever the solution, sanitising the planet is not it.

 

[outpost31]

maybe? 140,000 people on jobseekers allowance and only 15,000 job opportunities is part of the reason scotland has problems.

 

[spartacus]

There was a judge in Glasgow in the sixties at the height of the knife gangs, whenever anyone came up in front of him he would say 'think you're a hard man because you have a weapon?' well here is six months/a year IN jail. See how hard you are when you come out. Cured a lot of problems that did.

Six months or a year then WAS prison time. Not the soft option of doing HALF your sentence as a maximum, with your play station etc.

So the real problem is the fact there is little or no punishment attached to a crime to a person.

Steal some money or kill someone. Which gets the higher sentence?

 

[Ronnie]

Well, that's my Friday night fun out the window then

 

[Toddy]

I don't 'want' to live in a sanitized world Martyn, I'm usually covered in mud, plant stuff and the like. I do detest the broken glass every bit as much as the discarded plastic though. Plastic bottles don't cause the injuries we see or leave common ground a minefield.

If the pubs can accept that there's a need to change, why can't you see the benefit ? It's all very well demanding that folks take responsibility for their actions, and I agree, but the reality is that these people won't, and the drain on society 'making' them take responsibility is just that, a drain, a huge burden.
Which brings us back to the leg things trying to stop them drinking for the length of their sentence.
I'm still dubious as to their effectiveness in real life though.

cheers,
M

 

[Ronnie]

Okay - I see this is a serious discussion so I will try to be sensible. Alcohol has been getting progressively cheaper year on year due to relatively small increases in alcohol duty against inflation, mass production by the big breweries, and increased spending power in the population:

There is a clear correlation between price and consumption. If we really want to tackle alcohol use in this country, we need to tax it more. This is unlikely to happen while government alcohol policy is largely controlled by the industry. The breweries are rich and powerful - money talks and you know the rest...

http://www.spinwatch.org/-articles-...2-the-portman-group-lobby-watch-column-in-bmj

There is a similar situation in the US when it comes to sugar.

 

[nuggets]

Well, that's my Friday night fun out the window then

This guy `rab`should cheer you up , on topic episode as well


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMP4h6DQrrE&feature=related

 

[Maggot]

I don't get what the graph is showing. Obviously it's demonstrating something about price/consumption, but what? Is the axis showing pence, 40p to 140p, units, why is the 87 baseline 100? 100 what? It is a nice graph showing something or other, but it is clearly not showing it should be taxed more. If anything, it shows we earn more, as the % difference between what we earn and how much we pay is bigger.

It also clearly does not say who drinks what, when, how much, why or in what socio-economic group those people fall, and what they do when they have drunk it.

All in all, a completely worthless graph when taken as a stand alone piece of information. Quite pretty though, and a bit like a sky scraper if you view it at ninety degrees.

I'm still for the leg tags though, no convincing arguments against yet, except Toddys copper mate who thinks it's a bit like privatising the prison transport.

 

[santaman2000]

...


There is a clear correlation between price and consumption. If we really want to tackle alcohol use in this country, we need to tax it more. This is unlikely to happen while government alcohol policy is largely controlled by the industry. The breweries are rich and powerful - money talks and you know the rest...
There is a similar situation in the US when it comes to sugar.

Actually the price of sugar over here went out of the roof decades ago; our fat food factories switched to high fructose corn syrup. That's become a separate debate in its own right. Healthwise.

 

[Toddy]

The graph shows that relative to disposable income the price of alcohol has actually fallen.

It means that the bottle of whisky bought twenty years ago will actually cost less now despite inflation in the meantime.

Therefore the alchol is more affordable in quantity.

Skyscraper ? you're channeling your inner Basil Spence aren't you ? (curses on his name)

cheers,
Toddy

 

[Ronnie]

Actually the price of sugar over here went out of the roof decades ago; our fat food factories switched to high fructose corn syrup. That's become a separate debate in its own right. Healthwise.

Sorry, I was probably being unclear. My reference to US sugar is in response to the vastly powerful sugar lobby built on old slave money. This is why the federal RDA of sugar is set so obscenely high in your country.

 

[santaman2000]

Sorry, I was probably being unclear. My reference to US sugar is in response to the vastly powerful sugar lobby built on old slave money. This is why the federal RDA of sugar is set so obscenely high in your country.

Could you show me the reference in the FDA where there is a RDA for sugar? I've never seen ANY RDA for refined sugar. It's not even listed as one of the food groups.



However I did find this:
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"FDA Recommended Daily Values

The FDA sets recommended Daily Values for a number of dietary components. Daily Values are set based on a 2,000-calorie-per-day diet, and set minimal recommended intake limits for vitamins, some minerals, and fiber, as well as maximal recommended intake limits for sodium, cholesterol and fat. Nutritional information panels on packaged food products indicate the percent of Daily Value of each listed dietary component found in one serving of the labeled food product. The FDA has not set Daily Values for sugar as of June 2011. However, the quantity of sugar, measured in grams--including both naturally occurring and added--in food products may be found listed on the nutritional information panel."
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And this:
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"According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most of the extra sugar in the diet comes from drinking sugar-sweetened beverages. This includes carbonated soft drinks, fruit drinks, punches, sports drinks, coffee and tea with sugar added and milk products that are flavored."
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________


BTW most of the sugar lobby now comes from the beet sugar factories out West (there was never any slavery in Mormon country)