Saturday, 20 February 2010

Cutting off your own balls

I’m well aware that commercial companies are basically interested in making money, and rarely show much interest in defending the rights of their own consumers. But, even, so, I was taken aback to see this advert from Pernod Ricard in today’s Times.

As I’ve argued before on here, having a few drinks in pubs before the age of 18 is unlikely to do people any harm and indeed may help with learning to drink responsibly. While drinking at home under the age of 18 under parental supervision is not illegal, is not “underage drinking”, and is widely believed to lead to a more responsible attitude to alcohol in later life.

I wouldn’t expect drinks companies to openly condone this message, but on the other hand neither would I expect them to go so far in condemning it, especially when company executives must know very well they are in effect attacking their own responsible adult consumers.

This really is appeasement of the most pathetic kind – no matter how far they go in parroting the anti-drink message, they will never satisfy the neo-Prohibitionists.

8 comments:

  1. The social engineers will never
    clamp down on "at home" drinking
    It does'nt even get a mention on
    their agenda. If you want total control,keep the idiots on their
    sofas and keep the taverns for
    silent diners at tables for two or
    give them a full wall screen to
    stop them complaining.For added
    division split the clowns into
    two factions, smokers and non smokers,glaring at each other.
    As there are no "real"left in
    England,who gives a shit any more.

    PS
    Seen today in East Manchester
    store 1 Pint Brandy..£5.50p

    PPS Massive clampdown on underage
    drinking in Manchester centre.
    Some bars having to sell to kids
    "due to the recession"

    I wish they would do me a favour
    and just be honestt for once

    Pennine Ferret

    ReplyDelete
  2. Excuses? Yes, we did go to pubs when we were underaged and it was fantastic! It's a stepping stone of personal development that needs no excusing.

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  3. Curmudgeon,

    I've already voted in your new survey but perhaps I ought not to have done before clearing up the point: do you mean off-putting in some pubs as opposed to others, or off-putting in pubs as a whole; it might sound picky but I don't think the two are quite the same.

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  4. Brian,

    The option is available to change your votes, of course. The poll is meant to refer to what you find offputting in some pubs, not pubs as a whole, but things you encounter reasonably frequently, not just once in a blue moon.

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  5. I'm still not convinced that you have to be on one side of the line or the other. I pretty sure there must be an alternative viewpoint to take. Just haven't worked out fully what it is yet.

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  6. The problem is, Paul, that every concession given to the neo-Prohibitionists, however reasonable it might seem, they will gleefully lap up and just come back for more.

    They are not interested in coming to an acceptable settlement - their concern is "direction of travel" and a steady ratcheting of the law and the norms of public acceptability their way.

    At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, ceding the Sudentenland to Germany might have seemed to make sense, given it had a German majority population, but it certainly didn't ensure peace in our time.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I wasn’t really thinking of compromise or appeasement but more of an Edward de Bono type approach.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Sorry if I misinterpreted your comment, Paul.

    Care to elaborate a bit?

    ReplyDelete

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