An alcoholic fog has much to recommend it

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/26/alcoholic-fog-much-to-recommend-it

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A new study involving 9,000 people published in BMJ Open states that people over 50 who are otherwise solvent, active, successful and healthy are more at risk from excessive drinking than their less-well-off peers. The author, Professor Jose Iparraguirre, Age UK’s chief economist, says that harmful regular drinking is a hidden, middle-class, middle-aged phenomenon and drinkers may not realise it’s putting their health at risk.

Meanwhile, another study shows that, despite the government’s hardline legislation, the use of ecstasy and LSD has risen sharply in the past two years among young people aged 16 to 24, up 84% and 175% respectively; and that overall young people are the most likely age group to take drugs.

Related: Harmful drinking among middle-class over-50s is a 'hidden phenomenon'

On the one hand, you’ve got the older tribe, perhaps arrogantly presuming that a good career, a bit of yogalates and the odd chia smoothie will offset the effect of the alcohol. On the other, you’ve got young people, ingesting class A drugs most older people would think twice about taking, if not for moral reasons, then for health ones. It isn’t surprising that the younger group’s route to excess suggests high levels of sociability at clubs and raves, while the older group probably err on the unsociable side – perhaps the odd dinner party, but mainly sitting on the sofa, quietly glugging. So there’s the same goal (a good time), but the different approaches speak to me about age zones: how if we don’t fall into them voluntarily, we end up being pushed into them anyway.

As I’ve written before, I barely drink these days (I can’t handle the hangovers). Other older people who have continued to drink probably think that life would be intolerable without a nightly tipple. Well, I’ve got news for them– they’re absolutely right. Not drinking really is as dull as it looked when I was semi-permanently sloshed. Anyone thinking of giving up alcohol, musing about how they’d fill the time, learning the piano, writing screenplays or reading improving literature – dream on. You’ll probably end up like me, stone-cold sober, thinking deep thoughts such as: “Isn’t Rylan from X Factor doing well on Celebrity MasterChef?” Or wandering around the kitchen, wondering if anyone ever cheese-grated off their own face out of sheer boredom.

So I more than understand those who drink to what could be delicately termed “genteel excess”. My advice (though it has to be made clear that I’m not a doctor) is to, within reason, stay in your alcoholic fog – you’re certainly not missing anything in the Land of the Sober.

After all, where else are the middle-class/middle-aged supposed to put any rebellious hedonistic impulses they might still possess if not into a few too many glasses of plonk?

In this way, the pricier end of the wine aisle, the half-decent burgundy, perhaps some close friends around a kitchen table, it all becomes a question of age. This is what you do for fun at a certain age, Lord help you. The reverse applies to the class-A gobbling youth. Where else could they hope to escape the ongoing middle-aged infiltration of hedonistic “yoof culture” – those old hands grasping greedily at another chance to be hip and young?

I’ve felt sorry for the youth of today many times – the poor sods can’t even go to a music festival any more without their parents trying to go along. In such an era of extreme intergenerational blending, where it’s deemed perfectly reasonable for parents to accompany their grown children to Glastonbury, where can a young person go to shake off their elders/not-betters? Into the “big night out” and class A drug culture, that’s where.

Obviously there’s more to both these studies. However, these degeneracy-signifiers, these hedonistic outbursts and bad habits, in some ways may say less about individuals, their behaviours and tastes, and more about age zones, voluntary or otherwise. They tell us how ultimately we all fall down these sociological rabbit holes, whether we mean to or not.

When mortal enemies become good friends

How lovely that Bill Clinton and George W Bush are now “bezzies”, with the latter calling the former “a brother from another mother”. As Democrats and Republicans, the former presidents are supposed to be sworn enemies. But now there’s a danger that Hillary is going to bring back her team to plan campaign strategy and Dubya will be there, helping himself to a beer and joshing with Bill for cheating at Scrabble. Nah, that would never happen. Dubya can’t spell.

This cross-pollination doesn’t seem quite so surprising in Britain, where we’ve become accustomed to politicos “sharing a joke” as the lights go down in the Newsnight studio. Which sometimes looks sickening, but on balance is good – far healthier than being ideologically opposed cartoons.

Of course, this stretches beyond politics, with the most hostile of antagonists ending up respecting their erstwhile deadly adversaries. Diehard Britpop rivals Noel Gallagher and Damon Albarn get on brilliantly now – there’s even talk of a collaboration. Ultimately, strong memories, forged in a shared era, the priceless sense of having gone through something together, matter more than any amount of original differences, it seems.

Talk of a gull cull is just bird-brained

People in Cornwall are complaining about being attacked by gulls, usually when the birds swooping down to get food or protecting their young. I witnessed something similar in Brighton when my daughter was surrounded by gulls – they were huge, aggressive and it was startling. Admittedly, I probably added my own sense of drama because my favourite Hitchcock film is The Birds. Part of me would have quite relished the cinematic frisson of turning around to see a host of seagulls menacingly lined up on the pier.

So I sympathise with the people being attacked in Cornwall. Some of those birds are so big they could hurt a person; already a small dog has been killed. Still, when people start saying there needs to be a “conversation” about the gull problem, I hope this isn’t some kind of euphemism for a major cull.

One of the first things you notice when people want to kill wildlife is how swiftly the vocabulary changes. Foxes, badgers, gulls... there is this insidious rebranding of living things, which, more often than not, are simply existing in their natural habitats. Suddenly, they’re “vermin that need to be sorted out”. There’s incessant talk of the damage they cause and the diseases they spread, but very little on their own long-standing right to share the habitat.

There are myriad complex arguments regarding culls and hunts (necessary evil or pointless cruelty?) and I know which side I’m on. Regardless of personal views, it’s chilling to see this kind of cultural manipulation: the gradual demonisation of a previously everyday, even loved, creature – all of which is surely unnecessary if the arguments stand up? So, yes, I’ve seen for myself how gulls can be aggressive and frightening – but let’s discuss, not demonise.