Peter Oborne is dreading a dry January, because he likes his tipple. I can’t say that I have much sympathy for his plight. If he likes his booze that much, ignore Alcohol Concern’s dry January and carry on as normal. After all, he has realised that nanny’s recommended units are all hogwash. If he believes he has a problem, then deal with it throughout the year, not just one month.
He doesn’t help himself very much when it comes to sympathy from those of us who do not share his chosen vice, though.
But I don’t understand how anyone can go out to a decent restaurant and not have a few drinks over lunch. I would rather not go out to lunch at all than just have water, or toy with a Coke. I feel certain that one day medical researchers will discover Coke is far worse for you than a couple of decent glasses of wine, and that excessive Coke drinking has unpleasant and possibly fatal side effects. One of these, already proven, is that it makes the drinker very boring.
Unfortunately, Oborne typifies a certain type of drinker – the one who believes that one has to drink in order not to be boring. Many of us can manage to take part in a social occasion at a restaurant and be entertaining and witty without being juiced up. Indeed, it is likely that without the lubricant, Oborne is boring (certainly if his silly article is anything to go by). In my experience, drunks are the most boring people on the planet – even more tedious than football fans.
That said, we have a rather puerile – and, dare I say it, boring – article that comes from a man without the wit and will power to simply say “no”. If you want to have a drink in January, do so and don’t bore us with how awful it is having to abstain, because, you know, you don’t.
I think you will find that his name is Peter Oborne, there is no s.
I thought it quite a good article.
happy New year
You are quite right – I’ve made the necessary correction. I checked and double checked. I guess it must be the brain seeing what it expects to see.
As for the article, it’s all a bit silly. If he really feels he has a problem and his last paragraph suggests that he does feel this, then simply not drinking during January is a sop, nothing more. And I certainly don’t believe we should be dancing to Alcohol Concern’s tune.
His unnecessary and somewhat childish attacks on those of us who do not drink are the same daft generalisations I have come across time and time again. There is no truth in them and removes any latent sympathy I might have for the author. He is a bore, unfortunately – and being a bore is nothing to do with whether one drinks or not.
Amen to that. Such folk seem to project their own sense of being daring and ‘free’ (which depends on a secret belief in temperance and all its ills) onto those of those of us who don’t or can’t drink, assuming that we think we are morally superior, when actually most of us are making a private choice for ourselves. Either drink or don’t drink, and don’t preach either version to other people, okay Mr Oborne?
Precisely. I don’t drink because I don’t like the taste. Others clearly do.
And of course, many people (probably most people) have to limit their drinking to little or nothing much of the time because of driving responsibilities. This excludes journalists based in central London.
Just to add a bit of grist to the mill, I notice CRUK are also running a dry January campaign encouraging abstainers to donate any money they would have spent on drink to their already swollen coffers.
Just like Alcohol Concern, they can get to f….
Happy New Year.
Oh, indeed. Giving those self-righteous bastards any more money would be criminal.
The thing is, over the Christmas period I’ve probably drunk more than is good for me. I hardly ever get drunk these days, but over the holidays, I have downed a few every day and, if I did this all the time, it would probably be bad for my health. So, once the Christmas stash of booze has run out, I won’t be making or buying much for a while. I might still have a glass of wine with my sunday evening meal, or maybe stop off at the garage for a four-pack if a day at work has been a bit depressing, and that part is my point. Why does it have to be all or nothing? To me total abstention equates to a kind of self inflicted misery, presumably something that you have to endure to atone for your health damaging, drinking sins. But the OP states that non alcoholic alternatives are just as unhealthy, so why not just drink less rather than temporarily embrace teetotalitarianism? Presumably that would just be too easy.