Booze in the news

So,  according to surveys into people's drinking habits, we are only drinking half of the total alcohol sold in this country. This prompts the interpretation that we lie about how much we actually consume, most people feeling somewhat ashamed that they like a glass or three of their favourite tipple to take the edge off as it were.

I like to drink, wine mostly, but when I am out I prefer to drink ale.  Units mean very little to me and never enter my mind when drinking.  I rarely drink to excess, though for some, a bottle of red wine at a sitting would be seen as such.  There have been periods when I have been known to drink on a daily basis, but these days I try to confine it to weekends, a pint with a pub lunch on a friday and maybe a shared bottle of wine on friday and saturday nights and that is generally it.  I don't really have a social life as such and that makes it much easier to keep consumption under control. Going without alcohol during the week is not a problem and I know that I could easily do without it if I chose to.

If I go to the theatre of to a concert, I choose not to drink, mainly to avoid the inconvenience of having to go to the toilet during the performance.

It seems though that for many it is not that easy. On monday night I went to the O2 in London to see the Australian Pink Floyd. Actually I went to hear them as for me it is the music that matters. The show started more or less on time at seven thirty and they played the whole of Dark Side of the Moon. I sat at the end of a row, and forty minutes after the start, people were still coming in and struggling to find their seats. Most of them had glasses in their hands and clearly had been unable or unwilling to tear themselves away from the bar. One pair actually took their seats in our row five minutes before the interval.  Throughout the performance there was a steady flow of people going back and forwards to the bar and then of course inevitably, to the toilet.  It seemed that the acquisition of alcohol was the most important part of the evening for many, regardless of the inconvenience to the rest of us. For me the evening was spoiled by, not just a few, inconsiderate people.

Drink is so easily available and still relatively affordable, and although the pubs are complaining of a drop in trade, drinking heavily at home is becoming the norm. Maybe that is the cause of the disparity in the figures, we all know that drinking at home doesn't count.

Vinyl revival

I have down in the basement, a collection of several hundred vinyl albums. Many of these date back to the sixties and seventies and some are even older and were inherited from my father's collection. They range in genres from 40's jazz and swing, through 60s and 70s pop and of course centuries of orchestral music. Most are not in great condition, I never seemed to have the knack of keeping my discs in pristine condition, but I do still play some of them. I am listening to the second side of Abbey Road, the Beatles at their peak, and I am reminded of some of the advantages of the vinyl LP when compared to modern equivalents.

Playing a vinyl record was almost a ritual. First of all there was the sleeve. The designs on these twelve inch squares were there to tempt the potential buyers, and as such many of them were real works of art. On this one, we have the four  band members walking across a pedestrian crossing in Abbey Road. An iconic photograph that has been scrutinised for hidden meaning since it was released. McCartney's bare feet and that he was out of step with the others were taken a sign that he was dead; Lennon's white suit was also imagined to have significance. All nonsensical really but you cannot play the album without thinking of the history behind it.  The disc has to be removed from the outer sleeve and then the paper inner sleeve before being placed oh so carefully on the turntable, cleaned with care before lowering the tone arm and bringing the diamond tipped stylus into the grooved plastic.  There are clicks and pops that drive some people crazy but they are unique to each disc and in time they disappear into the background.   After  twenty minutes or so, the disc has to be turned over and when finished, returned lovingly to its protective sleeve.

I keep a small selection of disc handy and now and then I will take the trouble to play them, even though it is much easier to play a cd or an mp3 file on the computer.  These formats are far less personal and their crispy clean sounds are clinical and what we have come to expect.  It is easy to pick out single tracks and play them out of context, and many of us make compilations of songs that bear no relationship to each other.

I am at an age when nostalgia is a hobby I suppose.  I do embrace new technology though, I even have a smartphone that I don't use much, an iPad that I use a lot, three Apple Mac computers, a Brennan music system that can store 5000 cds and several systems for playing tapes, cds and of course vinyl discs.  Maybe it is nostalgia that brings me back time and time again to the latter or maybe it is my body forcing me into a little exercise.

Take to the streets but do it peacefully.

The default setting of human consciousness hovers around apathy. Mostly we are oblivious to the goings on of the world and tend to focus out attention only on the things that are of direct concern. Even then, by and large, we may moan and complain but do nothing. Large organisations, including governments know this and major decisions are taken every day, with opposition only from a small vocal minority, whose voices are rarely heard and almost never heeded.

We are living in a society that our ancestors would find ludicrous. Inequality has always been with us, but the degree of inequality has reached new levels that  we should find shameful. We have high levels of unemployment, much of the workforce working for a pittance and grateful to be in any sort of work. We have at the other end of the spectrum, celebrities and football players receiving huge incomes, and a financial sector that rewards its cronies whilst punishing the rest of us.

Many people can no longer afford to eat properly, let alone go to a football match or a cinema. It seems that prices for everything are rising unopposed.

Mahatma Ghandi was a pacifist and yet managed to bring about the downfall of the British Raj in his native India. His methods included peaceful protests and civil disobedience.  He began alone but soon gathered huge numbers of followers. Only then did his voice make an impact, and his non violence became difficult to oppose.

We live in a democracy, a far from perfect solution to government, but so much better than alternatives. In theory power lies with the electorate, but of course nothing is quite so simple. In reality most people believe that their vote is worthless; the same candidates often being returned to parliament over and over again, and so many choose not to vote. This feeling of powerlessness is at the root of the lethargy and apathy that has got us into this situation.

I remember in the 60s, a mass movement that boycotted produce from South Africa. How instrumental that turned out to be in the downfall of apartheid, I am not sure but at least people were flexing muscles.
Maybe it is time to boycott football matches, movie theatres and the like, and begin a revaluation of people's worth.