Alcohol has been a thing in every human culture ever
While the rest of the post was very good just to nitpick this is nearly but not quite true.
It is remarkable actually that almost every known human culture ever has indeed developed alcohol. There are only to my knowledge two exceptions - one of them being the Australian Aborigines who never discovered alcohol on their own and only had it introduced to them when English settlers arrived in Australia. Nowadays the Australian Aborigine community has a massive alcohol problem as they were not used to it and took to alcohol in a really very bad way.
You discover it by accident when your fruit goes off. That explains wine - it is much less obvious that you can get beer from barley.
My (surgeon) father told me, when I was 15 and worried about drinking beer on an empty stomach, 'there's a pork pie in every pint'!
In days of yore it was possible to get Guinness on prescription.
When in the late seventies my grandmother fell and broke her hip all her grandchildren turned up at Putney Hospital with bottles, even cases, of Guinness for her and the staff raised no objection. The lady in the next bed preferred Sherry and her grandchildren duly obliged, again with no objection from the staff. Personally, I think the nurses just found it easier if a ward full of cantankerous old ladies were three parts-pissed most of the time.
Times change, medical fashions alter.
When I was in hospital in the late seventies patients were offered a choice of Guinness or Mackeson with their Sunday lunch.
You discover it by accident when your fruit goes off. That explains wine - it is much less obvious that you can get beer from barley.
A Russian colleague of my dad's at WHO once gave us a bottle of kasha, which he said was a home brew spirit brought over from Kazakhstan.We looked at it dubiously and thought "Maybe we'll try it sometime" and put it away.
One day it exploded. It had been quietly fermenting away and...
Never did get to taste it. Has anyone else tried it?
My (surgeon) father told me, when I was 15 and worried about drinking beer on an empty stomach, 'there's a pork pie in every pint'!
In days of yore it was possible to get Guinness on prescription.
When in the late seventies my grandmother fell and broke her hip all her grandchildren turned up at Putney Hospital with bottles, even cases, of Guinness for her and the staff raised no objection. The lady in the next bed preferred Sherry and her grandchildren duly obliged, again with no objection from the staff. Personally, I think the nurses just found it easier if a ward full of cantankerous old ladies were three parts-pissed most of the time.
Times change, medical fashions alter.
My Mum was prescribed Guinness when she was seriously underweight and pregnant with my sister! No wonder we're both fond of a drink..
I have a stub of a theory that TM rubs many women up the wrong way.
I think her occasionally cold, moralizing tone grates with a substantial proportion of women. They don't like being told what to do by a domineering mother-in-law type woman.
Many men are either ambivalent, or quite like it.
If that theory was true, Mrs Thatcher would have never won an election.
Thatcher was a different woman in a different era.
Forget the words/policy positions for a moment, just go on the vibe;
May isn't warm and relatable, in same the way as - say - leadsom or lucas is.
I think - for many men, that's irrelevant, or positive in a female PM.
For many women, it's a negative.
Kinda works the other way around with men / male politicians (eg, the usual *is he gay* shite wheeled out against any man who isn't alpha).
Shoe envy. Only possible explanation.
There would have been a lot of shoe envy at the PB meet tomorrow had I been there.
I have a stub of a theory that TM rubs many women up the wrong way.
I think her occasionally cold, moralizing tone grates with a substantial proportion of women. They don't like being told what to do by a domineering mother-in-law type woman.
Many men are either ambivalent, or quite like it.
If that theory was true, Mrs Thatcher would have never won an election.
Thatcher was a different woman in a different era.
Forget the words/policy positions for a moment, just go on the vibe;
May isn't warm and relatable, in same the way as - say - leadsom or lucas is.
I think - for many men, that's irrelevant, or positive in a female PM.
For many women, it's a negative.
Kinda works the other way around with men / male politicians (eg, the usual *is he gay* shite wheeled out against any man who isn't alpha).
Shoe envy. Only possible explanation.
There would have been a lot of shoe envy at the PB meet tomorrow had I been there.
I've been predicting for some time that immigration would fall by using the simple method of being so unpleasant to foreigners that they would get the message. Clearly that's working.
It lacks the elegance of your method of ensuring Brexit by telling most Brits they're racist scum.
I'm sorry that it upsets you so much to be reminded that Brexit was secured through xenophobic lies, but it's the essential reason why Brexit is the enduring disaster of the age for the country.
Or...Brexit was secured by hectoring, smug, superior arses, thinking that the argument for the EU was so fucking obvious that it made itself - but we'll gratuitously insult the intellects of the voters by the by.
These hand-wringers could have a) formulated the reasons why staying in the EU was full off benefits, even for the dumbest fucks in society b) made that case to them in measured terms c) got out to the hell-holes where these Leave voters lived and talked them over, on the doorsteps.
NOW they bitch and moan. Twelve months ago was the time to get engaged, if they truly thought it was the defining moment of our age.
What did you do in the Great Referendum War, daddy?
In your case, smirk while xenophobic lies were told.
How many people did you try and win over in Jaywick?
He was busy in Hungary with the racists and xenophobes.
Alcohol has been a thing in every human culture ever
While the rest of the post was very good just to nitpick this is nearly but not quite true.
It is remarkable actually that almost every known human culture ever has indeed developed alcohol. There are only to my knowledge two exceptions - one of them being the Australian Aborigines who never discovered alcohol on their own and only had it introduced to them when English settlers arrived in Australia. Nowadays the Australian Aborigine community has a massive alcohol problem as they were not used to it and took to alcohol in a really very bad way.
Alcohol has also been banned in many cultures:
* in China in ancient times * in Russia, the USSR and the US in the 20th century
and currently
* by Islam * in Gujarat (a mainly Hindu Indian state) * in Nagaland (a mainly Christian Indian state) * in some communities in the Chiapas state of Mexico (secular left-wing government)
The sale of alcohol was also banned by Spanish anarchists and by the Spanish Republican government in Barcelona during the Spanish civil war.
And I think it is banned too on some Native American reservations in the US.
It's not surprising that movements aiming to ban alcohol often arose at the same time as women's suffrage either.
It's truly pathetic only to be able to achieve conviviality or lightheadedness when under the influence of a drug. "I like the taste" is no cover for the inner patheticness.
I've got to say that I have now seen the most shameless political points scoring from the Manchester attack - and it makes no sense at all. Someone on my timeline sharing a post about how lucky we were that we had the NHS to treat the people after the attack. Now call me stupid if you like but I have seen nothing about terrorist attack victims being refused treatment in European countries - am I missing something?
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One day it exploded. It had been quietly fermenting away and...
Never did get to taste it. Has anyone else tried it?
Which shoes will May wear when she gives Corbyn a good kicking?
* in China in ancient times
* in Russia, the USSR and the US in the 20th century
and currently
* by Islam
* in Gujarat (a mainly Hindu Indian state)
* in Nagaland (a mainly Christian Indian state)
* in some communities in the Chiapas state of Mexico (secular left-wing government)
The sale of alcohol was also banned by Spanish anarchists and by the Spanish Republican government in Barcelona during the Spanish civil war.
And I think it is banned too on some Native American reservations in the US.
It's not surprising that movements aiming to ban alcohol often arose at the same time as women's suffrage either.
It's truly pathetic only to be able to achieve conviviality or lightheadedness when under the influence of a drug. "I like the taste" is no cover for the inner patheticness.