I have noticed for some time now that I get sneers and dirty looks from certain till operators whenever I buy a bottle of whisky. Okay, I do buy more than the average shopper, but I have never shopped drunk, nor even with whisky breath. I like to be able to see what I'm buying.
These superior looks have been steadily increasing until they are now approaching the look of disgust worn by many staff who have to sell cigarettes. They don't have to, of course. They could ask to be transferred to the car park where they could push trolleys around all day. The guy who does that job could have theirs. He won't like that. He smokes. Being outside suits him.
The denormalisation of alcohol is gathering pace. Just as the very mention of tobacco makes antismoker's blood pressure rise to unsustainable levels (tobacco tobacco tobacco tobacco - must get that on a T-shirt. Front and back), now it seems the slightest trace of alcohol gets the hysterical feeble-minded in all of a tizzy.
It has now come to pass that a child was excluded from school for drinking a can of shandy. Not pub shandy, not half-and-half beer and lemonade. The soft drink shandy. You know, the one with less alcohol than a spoonful of cough medicine. Not only is it legal to give this to children, it is perfectly legal for a child to buy it themselves. They can't get drunk on it. Nobody could contain enough volume to get drunk on it.
Yet the sight of this drink sent the teachers into apoplexy. They didn't just confiscate it (which would in itself be theft, because there was nothing illegal in this child having it), they excluded him from his primary school and put a note on his file that he was 'found with alcohol'.
That sounds like defamation to me. The child has been punished for doing something that is perfectly legal. He has also been branded as a drinker, for drinking a perfectly legal drink sold to him perfectly legally by Local Shop.
Teachers at Edenbridge Primary School, Kent, believed it was alcoholic but the drink, a traditional children's favourite, contains just a tiny fraction of alcohol and was sold to the youngster legally.
These are not just adults, who presumably had access to this same drink as children. These are teachers! These are the ones who are teaching the next generation and they don't even know what shandy is! They should be embarrassed to show their faces but we just know they're going to brazen it out. Pomposity is more important than intelligence where the Righteous are concerned.
What have Local Shop to say in all this? They have done nothing wrong at all here.
A staff member at the shop said they didn't realise it contained any alcohol until they heard what had happened to Asa. They have now stopped selling the drink to children.
What happened to the child had nothing to do with the drink. It was entirely due to the hysterical response of a group of morons who are too stupid to realise they are stupid. Local Shop has caved in and a legally available soft drink will no longer be available to children even though they are perfectly entitled to buy it. Local Shop are idiots too.
Surely though, once the school realised that it was a legal soft drink and not a bottle of Smirnoff, they would apologise and set things right? Not a bit of it.
But the school's headteacher, Dr Rosemary Addison, defended the three-day exclusion, saying: 'We are keen to have Asa returning to school. However, we have a responsibility to take the issue of alcohol on the school premises, regardless of the percentage, very seriously.
Then you cannot permit alcohol-based hand washes, cough syrups, perfumes, or anything else that contains alcohol on the premises. This woman is a grade A addled harridan and should not be allowed anywhere near children nor in any position of authority until she grows a brain.
It sounds insane and I'm sure many readers are becoming enraged. I'm also sure that almost every smoker out there is just thinking 'here we go again'.
It's the same thing. You antismokers, you know how you assume that smoking is the only cause of lung cancer, that all smokers get it and that even by looking too hard at a distant smoker you can get it too? That hysterical response was instilled in you by these same people. Now you are going to shit yourselves when you take a dose of medicine and then read the label. It's stronger than shandy. You won't be able to drive for a month. Children will be rushed into hospital when their parents find out what's in the handwash. Exposed to alcohol? Certain death sentence. A ban in public places (including pubs) is a matter of months away now.
Here it comes. CAMRA won't do anything because they'll think it doesn't apply to them. They'll call for stricter controls on non-real-ale drinks and actually believe they'll get away with it.
The child's parents should sue for defamation on behalf of their son. His school record shows that he was caught with alcohol and that will now follow him forever. It does not state' legally available children's shandy', it states 'alcohol'. The school will not change it and I don't think they should. I think they should delete it altogether.
These people are getting away with more and more ridiculous controls over our lives and they must be stopped. Exposing them in the papers does not work, they genuinely believe that reality is what they say it is and they cannot accept they are wrong. Hound them out of their jobs. Sue them. Boycott any organisation that does this. Keep children out of school - if that's the quality of the teachers at that school then there's no point sending them there anyway.
Big Society, eh, Cameron? So far it's looking rather more Fourth Reich than New Freedom.
All those shopkeepers who cave in to these thugs, all those lunatics who scream 'But it had alcohol'... get a grip.
Preferably on a Righteous throat.
Soon you won't be allowed to buy chips in a chip shop if you have a child with you. You might put salt on those things!
14 comments:
Anybody who has had to look after children, in a playground, or at a party, knows there is a certain kind of child who strides around, bellowing at the other children:
"Stop that! that's very, very naughty! I'm going to tell your mother you've been bad."
I've wondered now and then whether they shouldn't be rendered into something useful, like bars of soap, fish food, or fertiliser. But as a civilised person, I've put these thoughts behind me -- they might grow out of it.
Sometimes, I really, really, hate the human race. The world really does belong to cockroaches and scorpions.
“These are not just adults …………. These are teachers!”
I work with teachers, although I’m not one myself, so this story doesn’t come as any surprise to me at all. Teachers are funny animals. Don’t get me wrong - they’re lovely people, by and large; their concern for the children in their charge is in no doubt at all – in some sad cases it ranks higher than that of the children’s own parents. But they’re pretty much all a bit odd, if you know what I mean - nice, but odd.
There’s a touch of the “mad professor” about most of them. You know, surpassing most other people in their breathtaking knowledge of their specialist area, but somehow completely out-of-touch and helpless when confronted with something normal but not quite everyday – like sending a letter by Special Delivery instead of putting it in the postbox. Easy enough for most of us to cope with, but enough to render the average teacher wide-eyed with panic. Honestly. It’s one of the reasons why they are often such awful drivers. I’ve been in cars with several and it’s a hair-raising experience. Traffic lights are fine (red = stop; yellow = get ready to stop/start; green = go), but roundabouts are a real challenge (make a judgement of speed and distance of approaching car and ascertain if time/space is sufficient and what acceleration is required to safely complete manoeuvre), as are junctions. And they’ve cornered the market in whining about how hard-done-by they are, seemingly overlooking the fact that, unlike the rest of the world, they actually only work for nine months of every year.
Making judgements rather than remembering and imparting facts is the nub of the problem. So it’s no surprise at all that whilst they easily ingest the “alcohol + children = bad” factoid, trickier questions about “how much alcohol + children = bad” against “how much alcohol + children = not bad” just isn’t one they can cope with.
Dick, if a sneer at your alcohol purchase is detected, try this vaguely amusing tactic;
Smile (Important) then ask the sneering person politely, "Is there a problem?" Ask, in the nicest possible way if they need to speak to a superior before selling you the product. Offer ID to validate age, be nice (Oh how they hate that) to them.
Then watch the miserable po-faced bastards squirm with embarrassment. Remember, the Righteous are more often than not moral cowards of the worst sort. Out-nice them. They hate it.
ha! your last sentence reminded me of one of my wifes brilliant one liners. We were sat outside chatting to another couple in Spain recently. We were discussing things like glucosamine, well you do when you have a bad back. Anyway, I said, "well we drink and smoke" at which point my wife jumped in with "but we don't do salt"
Apologies for the 'Dick' I had Mr Puddlecotes blog open on another tab and had a browser senior moment. Damn this Alzheimers!
Bill - no problem. I've been called worse ;)
Is there a high percentage of Muslim children at the school? Or indeed, a Muslim teacher...?
If I had a child at that school, I'd send them in with a bottle of Brewdogs 0.5% beer 'Nanny State'.
Anon: 00:39 "they actually only work for nine months of every year"
This is true for the vast majority of teachers but may I point out that you are talking about the State system and not the private sector. There are some teachers (my husband included) who don't work in the public sector because they can't stand the Righteous rules and regulations. My hubby doesn't get paid holidays, gets no sick leave and has no permanent contract. However, there is an up side - he is able to actually teach children without having to follow a 'curriculum'. He can work outside the Righteous State system and does so with the knowledge that the children who he tutors are actually in his class because the State system is failing them.
The trouble with State schools is every teacher knows they will never be sacked, no matter how bullying, nasty, and vindictive they are. They get away with the most ridiculous behaviour - the shandy incident being the most ridiculous one I have ever seen. The power-mad controlling sociopaths who gravitate to schools can no longer punish children physically, so they do it psychologically instead.
Good teachers don't work for long in the State school system - intelligent, kind and compassionate teachers are not welcome.
I agree with Leg Iron's comment:
Hound them out of their jobs. Sue them. Boycott any organisation that does this.
Personally, I'd nuke them from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. ;) (h/t Aliens)
Ow, the facepalm was so big it actually hurt. If the shop has stopped selling it to children who the fuck do they think is going to buy it? I remember having that stuff when I was a kid but I don't think I've had any since I was maybe 10 or 12. I;d have thought pre-teens are most of the market for the stuff.
I don't think I've ever had a problem with till operators...it must be the psychopathic stare and the T-shirt saying "I eat kittens for breakfast".
As an aside but linked to this is my buying shandy for my 17 year old son when he was younger. He doesn't drink much alcohol but he smokes. The latter he has done since he was 12 years of age as I discovered last year. I'm a non-smoker but I do like my real ale, malt whiskies and brandy. I'll await the first comment from a righteous fuckwit who'll explain why this happened before politely telling them to fuckoffski!
Isn't the records bit against the data protection act -http://www.ico.gov.uk/what_we_cover/data_protection/the_basics.aspx
Is this really
Processed for limited purposes?
Adequate, relevant and not excessive?
Not kept for longer than is necessary?
Processed in line with your rights?
Post a Comment