Some bunch of earnest, concerned, interfering types in England called Alcohol Concern recently proposed that parents should be prosecuted if they allow their children under 15 to drink alcohol in the privacy of their own homes. This does, of course, beg the question: Are they out of their fucking minds?
First of all, there are already in place a set of perfectly satisfactory laws governing the age at which one can consume alcohol in the United Kingdom: 16 for beer, wine, cider or sherry with a meal, and when you reach 18, then you can drink anything, with or without a meal (Except absinthe -- that was banned some decades ago. I wonder what it tastes like?). Of course, these laws apply to licensed, public premises only. There are no laws which impose a minimum age limit on alcohol consumption on private premises -- except, for medical reasons, no child under five may be given alcohol under any circumstances. There is no need to replace these laws and I’m glad to say that neither the government nor the opposition has shown the slightest interest in taking up this ridiculous suggestion. The public had been less than enthused too. For a selection of comments see what they said in the Daily Telegraph and on the BBC website.
Apart from anything else, there is no way to enforce such a stupid law as this would be, short of spying on people in their homes, kicking doors in on spec, and relying on people to inform on each other -- disgruntled neighbours mostly. I suspect that the police probably have more than enough to do without being given all that extra work.
But if Alcohol Concern are genuinely concerned about alcohol, surely they can see that being gently introduced to alcohol in one’s own home is far better than putting it on the forbidden list. When I was a child I was allowed the occasional taste of beer or wine. I didn’t really like it and I lost interest in it for many years. There was nothing wrong with that. The point is that children drinking alcohol at home with parents are not going to be getting drunk. They will be monitored and their drinking will be controlled. They will be slowly introduced to one of life’s pleasures. Just as in France and Italy, for example, children are introduced to wine from an early age, usually diluted at first.
It is when teenagers are turned loose on their own, or in packs, that there is a risk they’ll get drunk because no one is there to control them. Especially if alcohol is demonised and it somehow becomes their holy grail. Placing obstructions in the path of people who want to drink is what actually makes the problem worse. We have the example of Prohibition to consider, which reduced drunkenness not one bit but resulted in the rise of the Mafia and a lot of dead people.
And in places where the drinking age is set at the utterly ridiculous level of 21 years -- everywhere, public and private -- we have the grotesque spectacle of teenagers, and even 20-year-olds, being arrested and brought before the courts, treated like criminals, stigmatised, and even sent into rehab for doing what other people the same age are doing perfectly legally all over the world. It is a thoroughly destructive process, but it is exactly what this proposition seems to want to reproduce in Britain. Kudos to all parties at Westminster for refusing to touch it with a bargepole.
I knew it! Finally, after all these years of being bullied and browbeaten by my mother, sister, teachers, wife (ex and current), friends, doctors and all manner of sundry busybodies, I am at last vindicated. I was right all along -- vegetables are bad for you. If you want proof, 
I am pleased to tell the world, my troubles are over! That’s right -- the days of scrabbling to pay bills, economising, belt-tightening and similar self-denial are all through. Or will be, in a few weeks. You see, I have been chosen, out of all the people in the world, to do a lady a service, for which I shall be amply rewarded.
This was sent to me as one of those mass forwards we all get from time to time. Frequently I don't even bother reading them but this one did rather amuse me. Very possibly you have seenit before but for what it's worth I pass it on to you.
I was reflecting on what I last posted here, and another thought struck me. It’s all very well for stubborn people like me to refuse to use silly names for coffee cup sizes, but there are some even worse examples of names for items on the menu. Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t imagine myself ever ordering them. 
I first went to Starbucks in 1996. I was on holiday in California from England and I had never heard of them before, but I was driving from San Francisco to Lake Tahoe and round about Sacramento I felt a bit thirsty so I pulled into the parking lot of this place with the intriguing name. When, a few minutes later, I got to the front of the queue I asked for: “A coffee, please.” Well! The looks I got, from the staff and other customers within earshot! You’d have though I’d farted in church or something. I did not realise, being from England where Starbucks had yet to arrive, that one was supposed to specify exactly the sort of coffee one wanted, the type of milk, how it was to be prepared and in what proportion, the nature of whatever sprinkly garnish you wanted scattered upon its surface and, probably, the name of the man who drove the truck that delivered the coffee beans to the store. In fact, as I later discovered, there is a certain snob appeal in being able to list as many specifications as possible when ordering what is essentially a mug of hot, flavoured water (This was brilliantly sent up week after week by the Crane brothers in Frasier). 
A short while ago, I was having a look at the Site Meter record of visitors to my blog pages and I noticed that someone had been brought here after he Googled “Louis Armstrong Wonderful World Lyrics”. In my posting about composer versions I had used all those words, though not in the order he listed them and most certainly not in the sense that he was intending. I would ever waste time or effort writing out the lyrics to that dreadful song. What A Wonderful World was just about the last thing Louis Armstrong recorded before he died in 1971, and it is a piece of crap. Such a shame it is, that he is so widely remembered for it. Now, readers of my previous postings may, if they are good at reading between the lines, have discerned that I am very, very fond of vintage jazz. It is a pity that more people aren’t. Jazz, and the ragtime that spawned it, were the first original American art forms, and as such are the heritage of everyone in this country. But if you go to just about any music store and look at the jazz section in the CD department, you will see very little from the first fifty years of the genre, and most of what is there will be unsuitable. It’s a sure fire certainty you’ll find several offerings of Glenn Miller, but folks, Moonlight Serenade isn’t jazz! Neither is Perfidia. Just run of the mill dance music. Now, Glenn Miller played with some excellent jazz bands before he led his own orchestra (Red Nichols, Ben Pollack, for example), but you’ll be lucky to find examples of those. And then there’s Louis. Probably – no, make that definitely – the best black jazz musician ever. How will he be represented? By CDs containing Wonderful World, Hello Dolly and Mac The Knife. Singing them, mind you, not playing his trumpet. This man was the supreme jazz trumpeter of all time. His West End Blues is a work of utter genius, and since the day it was first issued in 1927 it has never been unavailable – on 78, then LP, and now on CD. But probably not in stores. You have to go and hunt through the specialist labels for it now. The recordings Louis made in the 1920s and 1930s are uniformly brilliant – don’t take my word for it, have a look 
