October 19, 2005

The Northern Irish psyche is "not equipped to handle the 24-hour availability of alcohol"
  • somehow, I don't imagine the american psyche is so equipped either!
  • Well, given everything the people in Northern Ireland have been through, maybe having 24-hr alcomahol is the least we can do. And on a personal note, starting drinking at age 11 would have made my grade school years a lot easier. I would have been passed out, or popular. Either way.
  • I remember from my college days that the bars would close an hour later one night a year because of Daylight Savings Time. I expected the crowd to be there an extra hour, but everyone pretty much went home at the same time anyway. Which left me and the bartender as the sole occupants for the better part of an hour.
  • No one is, sweetheart. But that doesn't stop one from trying.
  • No'ahquipped?! *hic*urp - Ah'll smash yer fookin' face in fer tha! *hic* *clunk*
  • Oh, they're equipped.
  • Right. England is the WORST for binge drinking according to E.U. studdies, So I can't see England equipped for it much either. However, I think making it readily available on a 24-hour basis will help to kill some of the taboo around drinking thus decreasing the number of binge drinkers. Young lads drink so they can talk to birds; I highly doubt that you're going to see any birds in a pub at 8:00AM on a regular basis. It's too expensive to drink in a pub for a binge drinker; they drink at home. I think it will turn out like what happened in Amsterdam; you don't find many locals in the hash bars. BTW, TenaciousPettle I kind of find a bit sterotypical and bigoted. There are Irish monkeys on this board as well.
  • ok! so I am going to ASSUME that livewire is not entirely sincere with the "stereotypical and bigoted" comment. Birds?? BIRDS?????????
  • "We are not a Mediterranean people, and have not been socialised into the respect for alcohol those cultures have," the lecturer said. People in Northern Ireland tend to start drinking alcohol from the age of 11... There could be something to this, but I wonder if the kind of alcohol being consumed makes a difference too (wine vs. beer). Maybe not, but it struck me as an additional difference.
  • Captain Rectal A. McStinkyButt
  • Nothing derogatory about the word birds if you live over here, it's the preferred terminology. It's not the same as calling a girl "chick". I see how you could misconstrue that though ;-) So if it offended you, I forgot that you don't live here. When going out for a night on the town a woman would be looking for a “lad” and a man would be looking for a “bird” Also it's one of the easiest things in the world to do to lambaste another culture or race as "drunks". I seem to remember vividly Native Americans being pigeon holed as such. Also, it is very common to see Poles and Germans calling each other drunks as well. It doesn't make it right, and it's offensive. People are “drunks” not races or cultures.
  • I call 'em chicks. What's the problem? I do, however, argue with Livewire about the idea that blokes go to pubs to talk to skirt. I go to pubs to get drunk.
  • Not trying be a dick about it. It's just everytime I see a post about Ireland it's hard to not see someone calling the 4 Million people of my island nation "drunks".
  • I do, however, argue with Livewire about the idea that blokes go to pubs to talk to skirt. I go to pubs to get drunk. True, and are you going to become a 24 hour binge drinker if your local get's the license?
  • After 24 hours in the pub my psyche is equipped for anything.
  • "are you going to become a 24 hour binge drinker if your local get's the license?" No. I need at least 8 hours sleep unconsciousness a day.
  • are you going to become a 24 hour binge drinker if your local get's the license It's comforting to know that the option's available.
  • If we are birds, then call me a white flamingo.
  • Just having the 24 hrs may reduce the need for the binge -- you don't have to get a certain amount of drinks in you before last call. Taking the cap off the back end of the night may help to bring drinking according to "need", rather than the idea that there's only so much time left to fit in so much hooch, and get in all that drunken pawing. So kinda what Livewire said. Plus, it's handier come World Cup time, when you sit yourself down in the bar to watch some footie and engage in unfounded ethnic slurs, when the game is being piped in from halfway around the world at some ungodly hour. Coffee just doesn't do it.
  • Well then, Touchy de la Crankypants, is it because of the construction of the name? It's become a very common fake schoolyard taunt to make names like that, and, AFAIK, has no geographical or cultural association.
  • yeah it's a coincidence.
  • At first I didn't know how to respond, but the monkeys responded for me. So I'll just be quiet.
  • What about a more diverse sort of name? Something multicultural like: Seu Hammed Mc!Faced-san We need to be more politically aware people¡
  • Didn't I read somewhere that Native Americans were actually more intolerant to alcohol because of their genetic make-up?) *Just askin' a question because I don't have time to google. *Not askin' for a flamin'
  • BlueHorse: You're thinking of this. It's controversial, and is also ascribed to, eg Australian Aborigines and Japanese. I don't think it sounds that far-fetched - consider the ethnic mapping of lactose intolerance - but it's not surprising that it's an idea that gets people worked up.
  • You have to consider prehistorical use of alcohol in order to become acclimatized to it in any "genetic" manner. Booze has been made and used in Europe and Asia for thousands of years, in N.A. not so much. Think: sickle-cell anemia. Problem here is that we know it's beneficial versus malaria and we can see it. I hate to get overly didactic, but that's where evolutionary theory comes in: surving malaria. Alcohol intolerant gene/cells: what survival benefit could they have? As for lactose intolerance one of the theories (currently lacking evidence), is that those who absorbed dairy were better disposed to subsitence from cattle milk in winter months or times of scarce food. Those who maintained lactose intolerance died of starvation. It's sort of a stretch of the imagination along the right line of reasoning. Taking into account the founder effect and current migration theories, the humans in N.A. should have a smaller percentage of the gene pool than the humans that remained in Africa (AA + 2Aa + aa = 1). This means that as far as their paths took them more and more people leaving communities would have significantly different gene pools (diminishing from the African base into possible homozygous or heterozygous dominances instead of equilibrium). Of course, it's not that easy to say, the founder effect must have taken place in Africa untold numbers of times in order to generate humans, after all we must have had to leave the trees. So, what short-handed genes were the Europeans left with when they eventually landed in Europe and interbred until the whole "New World" incident? Anything that predisposed them to surviving death from booze before mating? Anything that weeded out the weak drinkers? Alcohol intolerant genetics seems pretty unlikely, but it isn't totally impossible. So it's thin ice. If you make the wrong assumptions about the results of whatever ethnographies or tests have been done or take the information the wrong way... FSMFSMFSMFSMFSM...
  • You guys are the ones with the drinking problem, not me. *pokes InsolentChimp in the chest repeatedly* You know what YOUR problem is, pal? Well, I'll tell you.
  • hmm...maybe someone should get mct a drink?
  • I have some stale rat urine. How does rat urine get "stale"?
  • The whole 24-hour dinking thing is a ludicrous daily-mail type panic. Even if pubs get 24 hour licensing I don't believe there will be a sufficient public demand to keep them open. What I think (and hope) will happen is that a selection of pubs will use them to stay open for a few hours after the normal 11pm closing time. I would welcome this. Currently in the small town where I live if people want to keep drinking and/or socialising they currently have to go on to a club where conversation is impossible or rush to the only bar in town that has a 12 o'clock licence, which as a result is always packed and not desperately pleasant. I'd be interested to see how many places are actually going to be offering extended hours.
  • The solution to this whole "bringe drinking britain bullshit" is this: tapas. If I could eat some delicately favoursome Iberian finger-cuisine with my fourteen pints of old scrotum, I wouldn't be dry-retching on my shoes at 2am like last weekend.
  • biffa, that's how I seem to remember it working in Edinburgh when I visted friends there way back in the 80s. I think a pub could open for something like 12 hours in any 24, but at a time of there own choosing. As the night wore on the number of open boozers gradually diminished until you had every hardcore late night drinker congregated in one or two seedy establishments at 5 am, which actually made for as about an interesting mix of people as you can make from a bunch of pissheads.
  • there/their. For shame.
  • old scrotum Ol' Scro'(TM), a frosty cold one for when you're hanging out... like out your dead grandpa's shorts.
  • Just had a thought: some people work the night shift, too. "Middle of the night" doesn't necessarily mean "has been drinking since 5 p.m."
  • like out your dead grandpa's shorts. I used to be a postman. Don't get me going about old people and their occasional casual habits.
  • Our birds don't drink. They smoke dope and fly into stuff. Crazy bastards.
  • so, uk-based monkeys, how's that 24-hour drinking working out?
  • *hic*
  • so, uk-based monkeys, how's that 24-hour drinking working out? Sounds like my roommates, first year of college.
  • How does rat urine get "stale"? You don't want to drink it, despite being totally pissed after a 24-hour bender. Educated guess there, based on anthropological observation of aforementioned college roommates
  • What's wrong with drinking alone at home, like us decent folks?!? Now gimme a shot glass.
  • A glass? Lah-di-dah! *Bogarts paper bag*
  • Those of you who have snorted beer, now is the time to 'fess up.
  • does reverse snorting count? i've blown beer out my nose a few times, mainly from laughing too hard.
  • Those of you who have snorted beer, now is the time to 'fess up. *yanks nervously on sleeves to hide signs of ale mainlining*
  • And don't get me started on you people with the wine enemas. Sheesh!
  • *de-ports port*