Drinking culture

This bloke Singe, the Sea Eagles “Head Conditioner”, might get nailed for being un-Australian.

Many will wonder whether players are permitted to drink alcohol en-route to the UK, but Singe reveals that everyone is thoroughly professional.

“Alcohol prevents your body from taking its natural process of repair and relaxation.

“Our terms are very clear – if you’re going to drink alcohol, we control it.

“Our level is zero. We’re going over there to do a job.”

With a wowser like that watching them they will never beat Boonies record of 52 cans:

Simpson thought somebody had won a card game until the plane’s captain announced Boon had consumed 52 beers. “Simpson went purple with anger and I mentioned to (selector Laurie) Sawle that maybe Boonie should be sent home and I would bat in his spot,” Jones recalls.

It’s a record Boon has never claimed, but Lawson confirms the score and says with great regret that he wishes he had rescued the sick bags from the plane. “They would have been worth a fortune,” he laments. “You can imagine Tony Greig selling replicas of them summer after summer after summer.”

Bob Hawke is a veteran beer drinker and a world record holder in his time for beer drinking:

The former prime minister Bob Hawke has turned back time, captured on video skoling a beer handed to him as he walked among the crowd at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

In the footage uploaded onto YouTube, Mr Hawke is handed the plastic cup by a spectator and at the same time a voice in the crowd is heard shouting: ”One for the country, Robert”.

Without hesitation the 82-year-old downed the beer in one go – taking about 11 seconds to finish it.

That is the same amount of time he is said to have taken to drink 2½ pints of beer when he set a world speed drinking record during his time as a student at University College, Oxford in 1955.

Makes me wonder though, does labour have any beer drinking champions in their ranks these days? Most of them look like they are more likely to drink a Cosmopolitan than a pint.

The Atlantic has some scientific cures for hangovers and the reasoning behind them:

Drinking a lot of water is the biggest and most obvious preventative measure and cure. That’s because the main thing happening in your body when you have a hangover is that you’re dehydrated. Alcohol, as we’ve established, is a diuretic, and most of what you lose when you pee is water. In fact, that George Mason article contains this terrifying little gem about where that hangover headache comes from: “The body’s organs will attempt to replenish their own water, usually by stealing water from the brain, which causes it to decrease in size and pull on the membranes which connect it to the skull, which in turn results in a headache.” Shudder. So outside of drinking water, and sports drinks, a good option comes in soup broth, which will also replentish your sodium intake.

As a public service to readers with self inflicted injuries here are some handy hangover cures from famous heavy drinkers.

Ernest Hemmingway provides a cure that Cactus Kate may approve of:

Death in the Afternoon — named after his 1932 bullfighting tale — involves an absinthe and champagne blend. Hemingway described how to mix the hangover helper, which requires a healthy dose to take effect. “Pour 1 jigger of absinthe into a champagne glass. Add iced champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness. Drink three to five of these slowly.”

Tv3 ran a news story last night about a supposed alcohol problem amongst our troops in the NZDF.

They cited 500 drinking related offences over 5 years. That is just 100 per year out of total of 10,000 troops or just 1%. They have 61 bars, that’s one and half bar incidents a year per bar. What a massive beat-up of a non-problem. Who are the wowsers that fed this crap to to 3News?

It is a massive over reaction and actually poor reporting on the part of 3 News.

When you compare the NZDF with the rest of New Zealand it is actually the rest of New Zealand that has the drinking problem not the NZDF.

In New Zealand a third of crimes in 2007-2008 were carried out by a person affected by alcohol and in serious offences, such as homicides, it was about half of cases.

Each year police here take 21,000 drunk people home or to the cells because they cannot remember where they live.

In fact if you look at Police crime statistics you can see public disorder offences (like disorderly conduct) which are highly likely to involve alcohol for the past year were well over 40,000, for just one year.

500 offences by the NZDF over 5 years seems small beer if you ask me. A total beat-up by 3News, they should actually apologise to the NZDF.

From Stuff:

The incident is alleged to have happened on March 2 after a university debate the previous evening as part of Orientation Week, at which Mr Hughes was a guest speaker. He, the complainant and several other people then went to several bars including Wellington’s Matterhorn bar and The Establishment before Mr Hughes and the complainant ended up at Ms King’s house.

What is a senior politician doing getting pissed with 18 year olds anyway? Great example to the youth of today.

Particularly when that same politician likes to open his gob on youth drinking with alarming frequency.

Darren Hughes -Sick Of Joyce’s ‘Pious Claptrap’

Labour Transport spokesperson Darren Hughes says he is sick of Transport Minister Steven Joyce’s pious claptrap about introducing tougher penalties for drink drivers when National is still happy to let people get drunk before they make up their minds whether they can drive safely or not.

“Steven Joyce, commenting today on the case of a man jailed for four years for killing a woman while driving drunk and disqualified, trotted out the same old excuses for failing to take decisive action,” Darren Hughes said.

“He says what he always says — that tougher penalties are about to be introduced — but he misses the point completely.

“What he doesn’t say is that if the blood alcohol limit isn’t reduced from 0.08g of alcohol per 100ml of blood to 0.05g, then some people will always be too drunk to make a rational decision before getting behind the steering wheel.”

He goes on:

“Sadly, far too often, drunks don’t think.”

Yes, turns out to be true when attempting to score as well. But Darren Hughes doesn’t stop there either:

“We have an opportunity to work together in many ways to create a safer and more responsible drinking environment, but National still wants to play politics. That’s a real shame.”

Hmmm who is looking “pious” now. Not sure a 32 year old former minister and senior MP leering it up with 18 year old till the early hours of the morning is what I would describe as “a safer and more responsible drinking environment” especially when the results of that “safer and more responsible drinking environment” are a Police investigation. But still Darren went on:

“The tragedy is that if they put aside party politics and personalities they could prevent the needless deaths and injuries of many Kiwis.”

And maybe it would help stop Police complaints too?

Phil Goff has been offering up advice in this area as well:

The Labour Party leader wonders if making it unlawful for adults to give alcohol to young people without their parents’ consent will actually have the desired effect.

Well I guess that depends on whether or not the desired effect is picking up 18 year olds and attempting to bed them or not.

I wonder when Phil Goff will actually show some real leadership on this instead of attempting to sweep everything under the carpet?

I’m confused. Just a bare few months ago we had Geoffrey Palmer, wearing his Law Commission hat, recommending draconian changes to our liquor laws, allegedly because of our “binge drinking” culture.

Then the Government is said to be considering raising the drinking age from 18  to 20, despite the party voting resoundingly to oppose such a move at its National conference.

And just last week we had Steven Joyce announce changes to drink driving laws adding even more confusion around the drinking age. Essentially the government is saying that at 18 you can drink, but you can’t drive with any alcohol in your system until your are aged 20 years.

This is all horribly confusing. To make matters worse the Government administration select committee yesterday heard submissions on the Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Bill which would make it easier to grant urgent approvals for temporary activities and facilities during the tournament.

So on one hand we have the Law Commission saying we have a binge drinking culture and on the other a government enabling quicker licensing for booze premises for the World Cup.

Mixed messages? I think so. Or perhaps there is a fair bit of lobbying going on behind the scenes filling the coffers of the lobbyists. Who would know?