Rave on Joseph Holt. Rave on. Pvivax said:. As Diana said Escape-from-PPRuNe said:. My holy grail - available from most of the main supermarkets. Pricey, but only a problem if you're poor and smell of biscuits and charity shops. Post reply. New Posts W. Worst Airport in the World? Latest: Wee Hawken A moment ago. Changing the army - how?
Latest: Wee Hawken 1 minute ago. MoD News. Working in the Falkland Islands? Latest: jagman2 1 minute ago. Harry and Megan: How long will it last? Latest: CaptainRidiculous 3 minutes ago. SA80 Replacement on the distant horizon? Latest: gafkiwi 10 minutes ago. The Defence Integrated Review. Crimbo ads spot the whitey challenge. Latest: smartascarrots 27 minutes ago. Search for an Un-Ally Star. Latest: Durandal1 53 minutes ago.
Films, Music and All Things Artsy. Latest Threads C. The Intelligence Cell. The loss of surfaces forced customers to hold onto drinks, making them drink faster. Noisy surroundings made chatting harder, so people drank instead. Marketing practices in pubs, bars and clubs, including happy hours and other drinks deals, encouraged the British to drink more, too.
All this was happening as the real cost of purchasing alcohol, allowing for inflation and changes in disposable income, fell every year from to It increasingly was for those in their 20s. As the new century began, alcohol was easier to access, cheaper to buy and more enthusiastically marketed than it had been for decades.
By , Brits were drinking well over twice as much as they had been half a century earlier. The nation stood atop Peak Booze, and my generation was drinking the most. More than people were killed by drunk drivers on British roads that year. Young drivers were most likely to have drink-drive accidents, and while a large majority of those drivers were men, women made up nearly a third of the casualties. Alcohol makes many of us unpleasant; around half of violent offenders are thought by their victims to be under the influence of alcohol.
It says something about British drinking culture that images from Trainspotting were used in the 10th anniversary press campaign for Revolution Vodka bars. Drink-driving casualties have been falling since the s, for example, probably due to media campaigns and better education for offenders. British roads might also be safer because more of our drinking now takes place at home. Still, the steady decline in drink-driving fatalities of the last 40 years was temporarily reversed between and — a period that closely matches the rapid rise in alcohol consumption that led to Peak Booze.
In any case, the members of generation Peak Booze may well have harmed themselves already. But the statistics roughly track consumption: annual alcohol-related liver deaths in England and Wales climbed steadily until around , when the numbers levelled off. Several experts told me that changes — since reversed — in alcohol policy that made booze less affordable were having a positive effect on liver deaths.
The incidence of alcohol-related deaths, which includes nervous system degeneration and poisoning as well as liver disease, also began falling a few years after Peak Booze.
The trend seems different in the generation after mine. Young people are drinking less frequently, and more of them are teetotal. Even in our thirties, with partners and babies and jobs and mortgages, we understand when someone loses their purse while drunk, vomits in a taxi or sleeps in their clothes and crawls into work with a hangover.
In some ways, it defines us. Today the drinks commercials are more tightly regulated, but the wine-sponsored TV cookery contest and beer-branded football shirt are here, reminding us that alcohol is a normal part of everyday life. The fact that staying sober for a month is seen as a feat of willpower and the subject of charity campaigns such as Dry January shows just how embedded alcohol is in our lives.
This would be fine if we chose to be part of the drinking culture. Sometimes, it feels like it chose us. This is an edited version of an article originally published by Mosaic, and is reproduced under a Creative Commons licence.
BBC Britain is a series focused on exploring this extraordinary island, one story at a time. Readers outside of the UK can see every BBC Britain story by heading to the Britain homepage ; you also can see our latest stories by following us on Facebook and Twitter.
Mosaic Future Britain. Why do the British drink so much? Share using Email. By Chrissie Giles 3rd November From Mosaic. From bar furniture to noise levels, modern pubs push consumption to the max — and these design and marketing tricks have affected one generation more than most. In , we were drinking 9. The postwar pub During the late s, a group of observers set out to record what went on in British pubs. Lager suddenly exploded, very quickly, after years of unsuccessful marketing — Pete Brown.
Old-fashioned, and reliable year after year. Owned by Diageo. Others lead in quality and ABV. Diageo owned. Designed for serving at a low temperature. Aficionados know that there are dozens of better quality. The rum-and-Coke crowd couldn't care less. Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies.
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
Already subscribed? Log in. Forgotten your password? Want an ad-free experience?
0コメント