Nanny Watch

Remember when I said that having defeated the demon tobacco, the public smoking ban being the final nail in its coffin, that alcohol would be next on Nanny's agenda?

A great many of you poo-pooed me: "It's too deeply embedded in the culture", "No-one would stand for it", "Impossible to implement" "Throwing up all over the pavement isn't as bad as even looking at a cigarette" and so on and so forth. My prediction was that it would start with doom-laden pronouncements from health officials and move progressively through the governmental and media food chain until drinking is, if not banned, severely curtailed, taxed to death and beyond and bottles/cans covered in health warnings.

The sea change in public attitudes will take a generation or so to embed, but they will happen if the triumvirate of government, health professionals and media continue.

Drinking has now been successfully linked to cancer (looks like a familiar pattern emerging) and already the first calls have been made to introduce 'tobacco-style health warnings'

Auntie's story here.

Nanny Watch

Remember when I said that having defeated the demon tobacco, the public smoking ban being the final nail in its coffin, that alcohol would be next on Nanny's agenda?

A great many of you poo-pooed me: "It's too deeply embedded in the culture", "No-one would stand for it", "Impossible to implement" "Throwing up all over the pavement isn't as bad as even looking at a cigarette" and so on and so forth. My prediction was that it would start with doom-laden pronouncements from health officials and move progressively through the governmental and media food chain until drinking is, if not banned, severely curtailed, taxed to death and beyond and bottles/cans covered in health warnings.

The sea change in public attitudes will take a generation or so to embed, but they will happen if the triumvirate of government, health professionals and media continue.

Drinking has now been successfully linked to cancer (looks like a familiar pattern emerging) and already the first calls have been made to introduce 'tobacco-style health warnings'

Auntie's story here.

The sky at night

After the initaial culture shock, suffered in 1984, of a Shropshire Lad moving down to the big city, I have, over the years decided that by and large, I quite like the place (though that shouldn't be taken to mean that I couldn't happily live somewhere else).

For all its undoubted advantages though, there is one thing London really does lack: absolute darkness. It's always light. Darkness in the parks is only relative and it's pretty non-existent on the streets, particularly main thoroughfares like the High Road, where the only thing that would stop you wandering down the road reading a paperback at 2.00am is the possibility of rain.

All this light pollution means that the clear night sky has the moon and maybe a handful of stars. There are very few places in the whole of the UK where it actually gets dark enough to see the Milky Way, but you can see stars. Not in London, though. Ten, perhaps twelve, tops.

That means that once again, clear skioes r no, there's no point in me standing out the back of The Carpathia hoping to see the Perseids.

I'd like to see them someday...

The sky at night

After the initaial culture shock, suffered in 1984, of a Shropshire Lad moving down to the big city, I have, over the years decided that by and large, I quite like the place (though that shouldn't be taken to mean that I couldn't happily live somewhere else).

For all its undoubted advantages though, there is one thing London really does lack: absolute darkness. It's always light. Darkness in the parks is only relative and it's pretty non-existent on the streets, particularly main thoroughfares like the High Road, where the only thing that would stop you wandering down the road reading a paperback at 2.00am is the possibility of rain.

All this light pollution means that the clear night sky has the moon and maybe a handful of stars. There are very few places in the whole of the UK where it actually gets dark enough to see the Milky Way, but you can see stars. Not in London, though. Ten, perhaps twelve, tops.

That means that once again, clear skioes r no, there's no point in me standing out the back of The Carpathia hoping to see the Perseids.

I'd like to see them someday...