Inform the Cokeheads, Hammer the Social Drinker

So this weekend is Cocaine awareness weekend.  Yes you did read that properly.  The glorified county council in Edinburgh are wasting yet more of our money, highlighting to "revellers" the dangers of using cocaine.

Community Safety Minister Fergus Ewing (aka Principal Nanny) said: "Many young people are not aware of the risks involved in cocaine use and the Scottish government want to ensure they have all the facts by providing clear information in pubs, clubs and student unions."

Give the young the facts about cocaine use.  Did I miss the meeting when coke was legalised? 

Contrast this liberal, namby pamby, "understanding and getting down with the kids whilst they indulge in illegal activities" bullshit with the rhetoric they save for moderate alcohol drinkers.  You know that (just about) legal drug.  You have a couple of glasses of wine on a Friday night after a hard week at work and you're a binge drinking, anti-social pariah who should be shot at dawn. 

Snort coke and you're a young, liberal free thinking citizen, exercising your right to participate in illegal activities - as long as you have the facts, which have been helpfully passed to you by the caring government. 

What next - Government Ministers out and about checking it before the cokeheads snort it to see if it's 100% pure or if someone has chucked some bicarbonate of soda in it. 

Coming soon - Alex Salmond in Soul Bar, nodding his head at a gang of neds saying, "that's good shit dudes"

What is this country coming to?

Simple recommendation today for the music - it has to be Grandmaster Flash & Melle Mel - White Lines (Don't do it), which should be the message being given........

Aberdeen City Centre Update and a lot of Digression

Happy St Andrew's day.  Isn't it a disgrace that we seem to celebrate the patron Saint of Ireland more than our own?  They've tried to steal our national sport and pass it off as their own (golf) and aided and abetted by the drinks trade have tried to brainwash a generation into thinking St Patrick is our Saint.  But I digress.

Sorry I've not blogged a great deal lately, was under the weather last week and now the boys aren't great (heavy cold and tonsillitis respectively).  But again this is not the thrust of this evening's blog.

Aberdeen City Centre is in the news a lot.  If you believe the local media and the Police it's like Tombstone on Union Street of a weekend.  Wasn't Val Kilmer superb in that film his finest hour I'd say - what happened to him?

Anyway when 5 people who read this blog and would not be too upset if I called them middle aged ventured into the Wild West this weekend I thought it was a good chance to judge for myself and I have to say I've come back with a confused picture.

The Police have been bigging up in the local radio today a build up of SS Stormtrooper proportions of Officers to Police the City Centre from the weekend just past until after the Festive Period (or should I call it Winterval so as not to upset my diverse, multi-cultural readership) to combat this anti-social behaviour.  This instantly confuses me as this is the time of year when people who are not normally in Aberdeen go out for Christmas Parties, so it's not the usual "ned" element who are the main pub goers.  Maybe the Police are very worried about gangs of middle aged Administration Assistants seducing said neds in Chicago Rock (if it's still open!?). 

Anyway back to our night out in the Bronx.  After a lovely tapas meal in Eljos (highly recommended) we went for a quick drink before we retired for the evening and sure enough outside the pub a young lad was cornered by 5 cops.  Now we couldn't hear what was going on, but he didn't seem to have caused too much of a rumpus and it certainly appeared that being surrounded by so many Police wound him up a damed sight more than he had been before they arrived mob handed.  A Police van then turned up and this made him struggle with them as he obviously knew the inevitable trip to Queen Street was about to happen - it all seemed very heavy handed. 

We then walked half the length of Union Street passing various drunks and one loud and aggressive female who was certainly committing a breach of the peace, with no Police to be seen whatsoever - I guess they were all in the Maria with the solitary guy they'd picked up half an hour before.

I appreciate they cannot be everywhere, but for it to take 5 of them to lift one guy for a seemingly minor Breach of the Peace, whilst the rest of the main thoroughfare was bereft of uniforms seems madness.

I have to say though in certain pubs there is an undercurrent of menace.  The place in which we were having "one for the road" was full of real undesirables.  A large contingent of them had plunked themselves right in the centre of the pub and were not moving for anyone who tried to get past.  You got the feeling this was deliberate and they were dying for someone to make an issue of it so they could turn nasty.  Complete bell-ends.

Can't finish my first blog of this week without commenting on the big news of the weekend - Aberdeen 1 Rangers 0.  Well done Dons you did us proud!

After this blog only one song recommendationcan be appropriate - Elton John's "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting."

Bingeing on the Nanny State

Friday night. The kids are settled and The Dark Knight is taped ready to watch. Down to the local shop for 4 cans of Guinness to relax and watch the film.

Go down there and it's adorned with signs everywhere - "drink aware", "know your limits", "no-one under 25 served alcohol". A young woman, obviously in her 20's is being refused the purchase of a bottle of wine. Embarrased, she walks out. The guy behind the counter, also embarrassed, is only doing his job. As I skulk out with my cans of Guinness, I feel like a criminal. Is this how it is for a junkie when they head into the daylight from a crack den?

Once I've drunk 2 or 3 of these cans, I'll be a 'binge drinker'. I haven't had a drink for a couple of weeks. This is a pretty normal state of affairs. I never drink on a 'school night', but if I go out of a weekend I'll drink more than the government "recommends". Sometimes a lot more. If I'm at home I'll maybe do what I'm doing tonight. This makes me some sort of evil, anti-social citizen according to the SNP "government" (more like a glorified regional council).

If you can't have a couple of beers at the weekend after a hard week at work without being castigated by these nannying busybodies at Hollyrood, god help us all. Now I think I'll go and find that nice bottle of Tomatin Malt and have a whisky chaser with this Guinness.

As a hard working, tax paying, adult, the recommended units of alcohol per day is any amount I damn well like.

Musical interlude tonight is an absolute classic - the Joy Division, Love will Tear us Apart. Ian Curtis' tragic life encapsulated in one heart tearing anthem. Listen to the words and if you're not moved you haven't got a soul.