Friday 21 October 2011

The ravages of drink

This article so conveniently brings together two of the favourite themes of the Daily Mail – hysterical scaremongering about alcohol and making women feel bad about themselves – that it verges on self-parody. It really is beyond credulity that drinking a daily amount that at most is only slightly above the official guidelines is going to have such an effect on you. You might as well say from comparing the pictures that alcohol will stop you from going grey.

In any case, it is not realistic to expect women in their fifties to all look like Andie MacDowell.

It’s also an urban myth that rosacea and “boozer’s nose” are solely or primarily caused by drinking: “Although alcohol may be a precipitating factor or trigger for rosacea, the stigmata that all patients with the large overgrown nose seen in rhinophyma are in fact alcoholics or "boozers" is absolutely wrong.”

4 comments:

  1. The scary thing is that the DM gets away with it, day after day. They demonstrate, irrefutably, that the average IQ is 100. What sort of memory fail do you need to have stories (they're not articles) which contradict the previous day's story?

    _________ will give you cancer.
    _________ prevents heart disease.
    __________ prolapses your clunge.
    __________ prevents Alzheimer's.

    Take your pick, red wine, white wine, statins, aspirin, sprouts, citrus fruit, milk, antidepressants, exercise ...

    You just write a bot to do the stories, attribute them to some redbrick university in the boonies and sit back and relax.

    I'd rather share a table with a DM reader than a Guardianista. That's because the latter would attempt to get me to pay for him.

    And to their credit, the DM employs Tom Utley, Craig Brown and Simon Heffer.

    ReplyDelete
  2. My Dad had a bit of rosacea, ie veins rather than "boozer's nose" and he was virtually teetotal.

    @20 Rothmans: I read the Guardian and I'd get you a pint!

    ReplyDelete
  3. @Bill

    In your case, I would be prepared to make an exception. Mine's an Adnam's IPA, please.

    ReplyDelete
  4. @Twenty Rothmans

    Good choice. Any time, mate.

    ReplyDelete

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