Tim Worstall

The WSJ:
In restricting alcohol, as in war, the U.K. need only ask: ‘What would Churchill do?’
Open another bottle of course.
Right, that’s that solved, next!

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Measures to combat cheap drink offers and after hours nuisance will be unveiled by the two main parties, signalling an end to inappropriate promotions whatever the general election result.
Who defines “inappropriate”?
There are, quite seriously, those out there who insist that serving a third pint of an evening to someone [...]

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Minimum prices for alcoholic drinks would be set by the Government under radical plans being drawn up to cut Britain’s growing binge-drinking problem.
OK, well, we’ve been told that this is illegal under EU laws for a start. Greece tried the same thing with tobacco and got slapped down.
But given a minimum price then of course [...]

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Nice piece at CiF trying to point out that there’s value to the consumption of booze as well as costs. However, we can sharpen up this a little:
There are personal and social benefits too, although it is by definition difficult to put a numerical value on them: how much is a glass of champagne at [...]

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The Russian government has set a minimum price for vodka that more than doubles the cost of the cheapest vodka on the market in an effort to fight rampant alcoholism.
The last time they tried this under Gorbachov the country ran out of sugar in two weeks.
Expect to see sales of black pepper rise and similarly, [...]

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A police officer in southern China has been declared a revolutionary hero after drinking himself to death at an official dinner.

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Stephen Foster, a supermarket worker from Gateshead, received a shock was mistakenly paid £1.4 million in wages. …..However, Mr Foster decided not to spend the money and instead contacted his employers to arrange repayment.
The Co-operative have now rewarded his honesty with a crate of Budweiser beer.

Interesting….they seem to have changed the shape of Budweiser bottles [...]

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One of the country’s most senior doctors has warned that obesity will overtake alcohol as the main cause of liver cirrhosis in the “not too distant future”.
Professor Christopher Hawkey’s comments come as a new poll shows that more than five out of six people are unaware the disease is linked to excess weight. “Obesity is [...]

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A Cheshire brewery has started making alcopops without the alcohol.
So, err, lemonade then?

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The beer in question is called Taedonggang, after the Taedong River which runs through the capital, Pyongyang — but it can trace its roots to the Wiltshire town of Trowbridge, and the Usher’s Brewery that shut down in 2000 after 176 years in business.
To the surprise of the owners, they were approached [...]

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A COUPLE of glasses of beer or wine every day is good for your bones, scientists said yesterday. Moderate drinking can significantly increase their mineral density.

So instead of "I’m off for a couple of quick ones" it’s now "Got to go and get my osteoporosis treatment dear".

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Now, the RSS’s Cow Protection Department has invented a new urine-based soft drink it hopes will promote its health-giving properties to a wider market. "We refer to gau ark (cow urine) as gau jal (cow water) as it has immense potential to cure various diseases. We have developed a soft drink formula with gau jal [...]

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So says the Mail.

This all started with a drink. But it very nearly didn’t because when I looked at the cocktail list in the otherwise swanky Charlotte Street Hotel in London and discovered that martini’s (sic) were £10.50 and classic’s (sic) £10.50 I momentarily lost my thirst.
The price was bad enough. But did you have [...]

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Dr Susham Gupta, a specialist registrar in adult and old age psychiatry, and Dr James Warner, a consultant in older adults’ psychiatry, said the relative price of alcohol has halved in real terms since the 1960s.

Right…they’re  measuring this by the price relative to income. And as alcohol is a manufactured item, it’s really not surprising [...]

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Just when they announce what looks like a decent decision then they go and ruin it.

It was previously planning to reduce the limit from 80 to 50 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood, which would put Britain in line with Ireland and most of mainland Europe.
The move was to be supported by the [...]

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"Even little tree shrews do it,
Let’s all get drunk."

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The Government’s top doctor said England should follow Europe and America and ban teenage drivers from drinking any alcohol at all in order to prevent accidents.

Now it sounds as if such a ban should indeed help. Pass a law, everybody obeys it and Bob’s your parental sibling of choice.
However, [...]

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Wondrous: the descent into authoritarianism continues: 

Shops could be forced to raise the basic cost of alcoholic drinks by a third or more, as part of plans to make it harder for young people to access cheap alcohol.
Ministers at Westminster are considering plans similar to those already put forward in Scotland, to impose a minimum price [...]

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A bad weekend in France for drink driving deaths, so a Minister leaps to make suggestions:

"I am going to introduce a decree in cabinet under which all drink outlets that stay open till two in the morning will have compulsory electronic breath-tests, so that everyone can test his own [...]

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“Cheap cigarettes are smuggled or fake and can contain five times more cadmium, 5.8 times more lead, 160 per cent more tar, 80 per cent more nicotine and 133 per cent more carbon monoxide.”

Produce 133% more CO I can get, but contain?

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