First, some reminiscing about the way things were:
One of my favourite memories of a childhood in Wales is sitting with friends at a bar in the centre of Cardiff drinking a quiet pint on a Saturday morning. We were ten years old.Ah, yes. That golden era when no-one thought it odd that fathers took their sons into pubs, even for a non-drink, without the Righteous shrieking in chorus…
The pint glasses were real enough and the bar had authentic pump handles, but what they dispensed was dandelion and burdock.
In the decades since then I have sunk more pints in Cardiff pubs than I care to count and, as a young man, I often went home the worse for wear. But I won't be drinking in Cardiff city centre pubs again - at least, not on Friday or Saturday nights, and not unless things change very radically indeed.Ah, here it comes.
I was warned that there might be trouble. Indeed, that's why I went there. I am compiling a series of reports for the Today programme on the way society in Britain has changed since Labour came to power and the extent to which politicians can be blamed (or praised) for it. One of those changes is the way we drink. Correction. The way we get drunk.‘We’..? Who’s ‘we’?
I haven’t changed the way I drink, and neither has any of my friends and relatives. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I was drunk and incapable.
Oh, wait, yes I can. It was when I was about 28, at a friend’s party, and I got such a merciless ribbing from everyone there the next morning that I’ve never, ever mixed my drinks again. I’ve never therefore made a tit of myself. It’s not magic, you know. Anyone can do it.
So lay off the ‘we’ eh, Humph? This has not changed everyone’s drinking habits, and you know this for the truth.
But the salacious, we are all going to hell approach brings in more viewers, doesn’t it?
So what did happen? Well, the first few hours were peaceful enough. I was mildly shocked at the sheer number of young people crammed into the pubs - on a busy night as many as 130,000 - many of them bused in from the valleys and nearby towns. That's half the entire population of Cardiff.Well, it’s that ‘equality’ thing isn’t it, Humph, the one you progressives all pushed for.
And not just young men. There were at least as many girls and women in their 20s and 30s.
Can’t keep telling us that we are equal to the boys and can do everything they can, and then be shocked when we act unladylike, can you?
Well, you can, but it’d be a tad hypocritical…
And not all youngsters. I met a doctor and his friends who showed me proudly their 'drinking plan' for the evening: eight pubs in four hours, with a drinking 'target' for each and points awarded for exceeding the target.A doctor! Shock! More hypocrisy. And it seems the target-driven NHS culture now extends to the staff leisure time…
The first hint of trouble came when a drunken man, in a violent rage with his drunken girlfriend, started shouting and smashing his fist into a bus shelter window.But…but…we can’t stigmatise people by putting them in prison! By punishing them when they commit an offence!
Sergeant Scott Lloyd, who was with me for the evening, remonstrated with him. I asked Sgt Lloyd why he hadn't arrested the man. He was, after all, clearly drunk and disorderly and that's an offence. By allowing this to happen, weren't the police effectively allowing the drunks to take over the streets?
'If we tried arresting everyone like him we'd run out of officers very early,' he told me.Heh! I don’t think Humph has read much Inspector Gadget or the late lamented Nightjack. If he had, he might be better placed to pinpoint the problem.
Fair enough, but I couldn't help wondering whether the young sergeant wasn't being a bit of a wimp, simply trying to avoid trouble. Maybe he was nervous of a confrontation with a violent young drunk.
Perhaps he should read some Bystander too, to get an idea of what happens after the police have swept the refuse up from the streets…
Let me repeat: this sort of thing - often even worse - happens on Friday and Saturday nights across the country.Only on Fridays and Saturdays?
That’s odd, because unless I’m very much mistaken, the relaxed laws count for Mon-Thurs too. So if it’s these that are solely to blame, why only Friday and Saturday?
Why? Every police officer I spoke to, from the former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Sir Ian Blair to the bobbies on the beat - believe extended drinking hours are partly to blame. They laugh at the notion of a continental-style 'cafe drinking culture'.And yet, clearly this is a mostly weekend phenomenon and it clearly isn’t performed by everyone.
There’s not a phalanx of police outside all pubs, is there?
But they think new planning laws are the biggest culprit. There are simply too many pubs, and far too many of them are so-called 'vertical drinking establishments'. There is nowhere to sit and chat over a quiet pint, nowhere even to rest your glass. You stand and drink.So these businesses are catering for, shall we say, a certain clientele?
In fact, they may well be drunk even before they leave home. That's the other thing that worries police officers like Scott Lloyd: what they regard as the ludicrously low price of alcohol in supermarkets.I wasn’t aware that we were letting the police dictate the retail price index…yet.
Obviously, the politicians did not mean this to happen when they amended the licensing laws. This is the law of unintended consequences in action.If the ‘genie’ in question is the siren voice of extended opening hours and planning laws, and this alone is considered responsible for corrupting good citizens, then yes, of course it can.
A worried Today listener reminded me of a line from the 17th-century poet John Milton: 'And when night darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons of Belial, flown with insolence and wine.'
Belial, in mythology, was a demon, an evil genie. The question facing our politicians today is whether the genie can be put back in the bottle?
But it isn’t. As Humph knows all too well.
15 comments:
It would be interesting to know what happens when those Danish Carlsberg employees - the ones who have free beer on tap at work - go out on a Friday night.
"eight pubs in four hours"
Only eight?
so I wonder what might happen if we stopped serving alcohol to people who are drunk and made being drunk in public a more serious offence.
'I may be drunk, in the morning I will be sober' these people trying to socially engineer behaviour will always miss the point.
Allow police officers to lock people up for the night simply because they are drunk and charge them an £80 fine for the bed and breakfast. Your right Julia focusing on alcohol availability and price seem odd tools to choose in taking the few groups responsible for this trouble of the streets. Not many defend the right to get behind the wheel of a car incapable through drink of driving safely so why should we allow people to roam the streets drunk and then be surprised when they congregate and cause trouble.
Take them home with an order to stay indoors until they sober up or lock them up and charge them for the pleasure, simples. I think most would rather stay out on the controlled side of drunk and choose a taxi over a police cell or a lift home that cost £80. If someone who was drunk committed an offence and claimed they had been served alcohol by licensed premises, follow it up, they all have CCTV, punish the businesses that profit by supporting the notion it is perfectly acceptable to put our own responsibility to not cause a nuisance to one side. Send out the message that if you want to throw up, piss on the floor, fall over drunk or punch a wall, do it at home.
Yeah, Brain, how is it that many seem to drink a good quantity over a period of time, in a group and just support the economy while not being a problem to anyone?
Again chemicals don't have emotions people do. People who think its OK to spill their particular brand of bile on the street need to be told they're not welcome. While we can enjoy cheap drink 24hrs a day.
I'm old enough to remember not being able to get a drink before 11 am or after 11 pm, with a 4 hour intermission between 3pm and 7pm. Sundays were out altogether. I virtually lived in the local in my youth, knew every person in there by their first names, knew where they lived, where they worked (strange how they all had jobs?).
I would not dare go in there now.
What is needed is a return to sensible licensing hours and a brutally strict enforcement of the existing laws on public behaviour.
Throw up/urinating/shouting abuse in the street? 10 days or £5000, take your pick. Second offense? Double the punishment. Third? Triple it, etc,etc.
That would soon cure it.
PS You said 'I cannot remember the last time I was drunk and incapable'.
Obviously not, heh heh.
"Allow police officers to lock people up for the night simply because they are drunk"
Which power the police will not, of course, use to lock up people who are drunk, because people who are drunk might lamp the police officer, but to lock up people who are easy targets...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1266170/Disabled-caravanner-prosecuted-keeping-penknife-car-use-picnics.html
When I was at medical school we had our own common room, which was effectively a large student bar near the med school and hospital. Med students regularly tried to and indeed succeeded in out drinking the Engineers!
More utter bollocks from the grumpy Humphreys.
First off I was born in Cardiff, the bloody "Bar" he's referring to is the Sasparella Bar in one of the lovely Victorian Arcades (Cardiff has several)It is or was, I dont know if it is still in business, a Temperance movement front.
You got a pint of Sasparella (an aquired taste) or D&B or Ginger beer, and a really crappy cheese roll if you were lucky. It wasn't a real bar at all.
Now then, where are all these 24 hour pubs? A moments checking and you will find that the number of pubs applying for such licences is miniscule. What is really happening is that pubs have reajusted their opening hours. They open much later and stay open to the early hours. They are not actually open any longer than they were before.
As for too many pubs, what planet is he on? 20 pubs have been going out of business every week since the smoking ban. There are far less of them than there ever were, so no wonder the ones that are still doing business are crowded.
And 120,000 being bussed in from the valleys ? oh do fuck off you silly old twat!
Good effort RAB, sometimes it takes just an ounce of common sence to deal with this kind of issue not complicated why fors and where fors.
Scoop up drunken idiots and lock em up for the night then charge them for the pleasure, zero tollerance. no need to crimminalise them or employ hords of people to pass clever laws just take these parasites off the street, period.
We all know who they are. They're not difficult to spot. If people thought they couldn't get away with behaving like this in public then they might get a taxi home or moderate thier behaviour instead of goading the police knowing full well not much happens while they make missery for themselves and everyone around them.
it can't cost that much to have a police coach to deposit drunks in for a few hours till they calm down. a big advert on the side 'drunk? go home quietly or get a lift with us!'
In fact, they may well be drunk even before they leave home.
Well, in that case, the staff are comitting an offence of "serving someone obviously drunk".
Try using the laws you have arsehole.
Thinking about that, that would mean 99% of the labour party, and Captain Queeg Brown especially, would never be able to buy drink ANYWHERE, EVER!
Therefore it has probably been "repealed".
"It would be interesting to know what happens when those Danish Carlsberg employees - the ones who have free beer on tap at work - go out on a Friday night."
Almost certainly not this!
"Only eight?"
Yeah, he must be in training! ;)
"Allow police officers to lock people up for the night simply because they are drunk and charge them an £80 fine for the bed and breakfast."
Not nearly enough.
"Throw up/urinating/shouting abuse in the street? 10 days or £5000, take your pick. Second offense? Double the punishment. Third? Triple it, etc,etc."
Now we're getting there - but can we trust the courts to enforce it and collect it?
"Which power the police will not, of course, use to lock up people who are drunk, because people who are drunk might lamp the police officer, but to lock up people who are easy targets..."
With the move to have recorded cameras on shoulder, and the prevalence of CCTV, this might be the one area where the police wouldn't get away with that.
"When I was at medical school we had our own common room, which was effectively a large student bar near the med school and hospital. Med students regularly tried to and indeed succeeded in out drinking the Engineers!"
Oh, yes. Medical students and their drinking abilities are legendary!
"As for too many pubs, what planet is he on? 20 pubs have been going out of business every week since the smoking ban. There are far less of them than there ever were, so no wonder the ones that are still doing business are crowded."
The smoking ban is becoming like the war. No one dares mention it...
"...the staff are comitting an offence of "serving someone obviously drunk".
Try using the laws you have arsehole."
Too difficult. This is a government of lawyers, and they believe there's nothing that a new law won't make easier.
Never works out that way though...
What other John Miltons had he in mind?
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