Friday 6 July 2012

An invitation to have your say

The University of Bath have kindly produced an online questionnaire asking for your opinions on minimum alcohol pricing. While I strongly suspect a particular agenda is being pursued, it certainly gives you the opportunity to express your views clearly and strongly on a couple of pages near the end – and to be entered into a prize draw to win up to £250 in Amazon vouchers.

There are one or two examples of begging the question, such as “What would be the best alternative methods of reducing excessive alcohol consumption?”

“Er, I don't think it is excessive and doesn't need to be reduced.”

You can, however, just select the single option of “Lower the legal drinking age.”

Plus when it asks you how many units a week you drink, you can't say “mind your own sodding business!”

There is one interesting question where you are asked if you would drink more in pubs, clubs and bars if the price of off-trade alcohol was raised to a similar level. It then asks you to explain the answer you have just given, which obviously opens the door to make a specific point.

Well worth five minutes of your time.

7 comments:

  1. You wrote - "There is one interesting question where you are asked if you would drink more in pubs, clubs and bars if the price of off-trade alcohol was raised to a similar level. It then asks you to explain the answer you have just given, which obviously opens the door to make a specific point."

    The answer is to reduce duty on
    'barrel/cask' ales to encourage people back into pubs that have been devastated by the smoking ban and excessive duty hikes. This re-invigoration should result in increased social interaction in controlled environments.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't want to have "social interaction in controlled environments". I want to have a PUB, like in the 70s, 80s or whenever.

    Remember George Orwell only got the date wrong.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ian - The "social interaction in controlled environments" describes the pubs we had many years ago. The pub is controlled by both the Landlord/Landlady and the customers to ensure social interaction within the community and was an ideal environment for younger customers to learn about acceptable behaviour rather than getting seriously out of order in town centre booze barns.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Definitely an agenda going on here. However, I couldn't complete the survey because I don't drink at home; I only drink in pubs. This seems to be an alien concept.

    ReplyDelete
  6. It is about time, some, if not all
    pub fans got a reality check.
    The only way the remaining pubs
    can survive is by raising prices dramatically or becomingkiddykafs.
    Maintaining current price levels would require a substantial increase in footfall preferably by
    the return of the millions who have forsaken the pub culture
    I will go no further suggesting the obvious to avoid the wrath of
    those for whom the solution is
    non negotiable.

    Just waken me when the truth returns

    Inn of the Forgotten

    ReplyDelete
  7. Sneaky little "ah, and how many units do you think you drink per week now?" question at the end there. I entered

    "For God's sake, I do know about this stuff. Same answer I gave before. Next question."

    but sadly the box on screen only accepted numbers.

    ReplyDelete

Comments, especially on older posts, may require prior approval by the blog owner. See here for details of my comment policy.

Please register an account to comment. Unregistered comments will generally be rejected unless I recognise the author. If you want to comment using an unregistered ID, you will need to tell me something about yourself.