Monday 16 March 2009

FREE BEER from it's bottles.

Mmmm...beer.


It's now thought that beer, and not bread, gave impetus to the first civilisations.


It's only with the rise of coffee houses, where business could be conducted in sobriety, that one part of society started looking down it's nose at the drinking habits of the other.And that part, of course, is the one with the wine cellars at home.


The nursery rhyme "Pop goes the weasel" is about excessive gin drinking in the mid eighteenth century.
Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for tuppence, clean straw for nothing.


Hogarth's Gin Lane is a condemnation of it; his lesser known Beer St shows prosperous tradesmen all contentedly quaffing large tankards of ale; a pawnbroker in his ramshackle premises is handed a half pint.


In the mid to late ninteenth century it was religion and the Teetotallers.


The licensing laws were introduced during the First World War to stop munitions workers coming back drunk at lunchtime, or coming to work in the morning with a hangover.


The factory owners, of course, had their clubs which did not need a licence.

Imagine it in Germany? Time mein Herren bitte...oi you with the Chaplin moustache!Stop organising armed rebellion, drink up and get out.


There were complaints recently about the large supermarket chains selling beer cheaper than water.

I thought that reflected more on the idiots who bought the water myself...


So the next time you cross the road to avoid a schemie/chav/pikey/ned with his bottle of cider or Buckie, know that you are just the latest in a long line of people who have felt superior to him and his ilk, all through the ages.

And be thankful that your straw is cleaner than his.

10 comments:

  1. My grandson's nona grew up in a part of Italy where the water wasn't too safe so everyone drank wine - even the kids. Apparently this was also the case in Scotland before sanitation was introduced so folks drank small beer.

    The present hysteria over alcohol consumption is just dumb. It's all too depressing.

    Don't Bogart that joint my friend - Roll another one - Just like the other one - That one's burned to the end - Come on and be a real friend

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  2. My straw's changed every day so no problem there. My grandmother used to make all her own brew, parsnip, elderberry and rhubarb wine. She never drank tea or coffee just water or her wine. Lived until 86 and died of bone cancer in her leg. Never once noticed she was under the influence.

    She didn't like beer and said it was a man's drink.

    This pricing business is going to cause so much trouble, I really think the SNP ought to concentrate on raising the age to 21 and sod the students. Then of course they'd lose these votes - but save their livers for a few years.

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  3. You're getting far too good with photoshop Conan.

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  4. Mmm! i thought i noticed your hat box in one of his engravings..

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  5. Im lost, is this summit to do with the SNP,s minimum price plan on drink ?

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  6. Nice picture of Nikos frothing at the mouth there, Conan.

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  7. Hi scunnert, ye auld hippy ye.

    Thanks subrosa.

    Hat box? Perve.

    Hell no Spook, it's about the UK's one;-)

    A rare one of him not "drunk" yet brownlie.

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  8. Heh, FREE BEER in the post's title, and all of a sudden I get two hits from Australia :-)

    Gidday mates.

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  9. Conan,

    When I was a lad, during the dark days of the Crimean war, I have a vague recollection of individuals in the Hebrides making their own beer. In these days shops stored sweets in glass containers and I seem to remember that these containers were used to make beer. I'm not sure what you would call it in English but in Gaelic they called it "Beastie Beer" because it had what looked like fat worms at the bottom of the jar. Being a sherry drinker in these day, I never tried it but as the nearest pub was an hour long boat journey away it probably came in quite handy.

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  10. Brownlie, beer is brewed free, but everywhere is in cans.

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