There’s not a lot more you can say about this one:
But it does illustrate the inherent limitations of one-size-fits-all health warnings, and underlines that they are likely to represent a lowest common denominator.A former pub landlord who regularly drank 40 pints a day has dismissed health warnings over alcohol as part of a ‘nanny state’.
Ken Chappell said tests ordered by a doctor concerned about his beer belly showed his liver was normal, even though he used to consume 30 times the recommended intake.
The 78-year-old has now cut down to six pints a day from his heyday in the 1980s and 1990s.
But he criticised government health officials for allegedly overstating the effects alcohol has on the body.
‘We are consistently told that two or three pints a day will kill you, maybe not today, but in the future,’ he said.
‘But I’m 78, so when is it going to be my time?’
Incidentally, in the mid-Eighties I remember the Boddingtons house magazine, The Bodfan, reporting that the Barbridge Inn near Nantwich had a regular who would routinely consume twenty pints each lunchtime, but the story was quietly dropped when it was pointed out that it didn’t put across quite the right image.
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20 pints in lunch time! I'm impressed.
ReplyDeleteHoly cow! Is that (*counts on fingers*) a third of a pint every minute?
ReplyDeleteI think it was throughout the then lunchtime session which was 11-3. So 5 pints an hour. I've heard a similar story about a Guinness drinker in a Liverpool pub.
ReplyDeleteOf course he is healthy, consider all of the excercise he is getting going back and forth to the bathroom.
ReplyDeleteMust have walked 5 km a day!!!
Gary K.
My uncle has always enjoyed drinking. At his drinking peak, I could keep up with his beer intake, but he'd also have regular whisky chasers, which would probably have floored me. I went to his 80th birthday party 14 months ago, and he was looking very well.
ReplyDeleteThere are also a lot of 78 year old and older people who smoked all their lives, still in good health, waiting for the grim reaper to come and take them too, like grandfather who lived to just over 100, both smoked and drank, his whole life long. But that was before the day of smoking bans and drinking restrictions and non-stop government intervention and propaganda campaigns. So maybe it was the lack of constant fear factor that allowed them to imbibe yet live so damn old back then. In other words, maybe it was a matter of faith. Without all the nonstop warnings, bans, scare mongering and propaganda, peoples' faith was in living long regardless of smoking, drinking and eating habits. Now - well faith has been broken - thanks to government.
ReplyDeleteAnon - you put your trust in faith! Hallelujah!
ReplyDeleteYour argument does not stand up to any close scrutiny, I'm afraid.
Nanny knows best though ... even when she has "plucked" her recommendations out of thin air.
ReplyDeleteThe plethora of things that I am supposed to do to prolong my life and protect my health constantly changes and in many cases are contradicted never ceases to amaze me.
I seem to remembers some sage advice about moderation in everything being the best bet.
One thing's certain, people who drink too much alcohol pose a very real potential threat to third parties. How could any sane person disagree? I mean, hands up anyone who has never felt intimidated by a drunk, or has never witnessed/heard of a drink related incident that has resulted in injury or death (deliberate or accidental). Perhaps we should have draconian laws to drastically reduce these risks. Maybe only permit the sale and consumption of alcohol on licensed regulated premises where the owner would be held liable for serving more the daily recommended units. We'd all be a lot healthier and safer, and it'd solve a lot of the litter problem as well.
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