Today is Leaving Certificate Results Day.

Having spent two grueling years studying for a tortuous exam, three or so weeks sitting through that exam and a summer waiting for the results, this is the day where The Future Hopes of our Country traditionally go out and get hammered, either to celebrate or to drown their sorrows.

Of course Nanny doesn't like this.  This is too much like fun.  This is not acting "sensibly".

Alcohol Action Ireland have produced "advice" for parents.

"Talk to your children about their plans for the night."

"Talk to them about the dangers of alcohol."

"Ask them what they will be doing, who they will be with where they are going and how – and at what times – they plan on getting there and coming home."

What fucking planet are these people on?  I can only presume they have no kids of their own and have sweet fuck all experience in dealing with teenagers.

"What do you plan on doing tonight?"

"Dunno."

"Where are you going?"

"Out."

"When will you be back?"

"Whenever. Stop with the fucking questions."  [door slams; plaster falls off the ceiling; end of conversation].

As with butterflies, our children morph into the chrysalis stage where they are preprogrammed to be obnoxious little cunts whose sole aim in life is to be as rude, disobedient and as rebellious as possible.  Possibly there are a few Little Lord Fauntleroys around who will sit and lap up all their parents' words of wisdom but they are a rarity if indeed they exist at all.  Try asking the normal teenager what their plans are for a night on the town and you are lucky if you survive with only mild concussion and an intact house.  The simplest route is to just let them go and enjoy themselves, and then pick them up the following morning from whatever hospital or police cell they're in.

And who are these Alcohol Action Ireland mob anyway?  I had a look.  

In fairness to them, they are honest.  They admit openly that they are funded by the taxpayer and are a lobby group.  Another crowd that we pay to nag us.  They come up with astoundingly original ideas such as banning alcohol advertising, health warnings, plain packaging and minimum pricing.

We can see how incredibly out of touch they are with their talk of "a wider harmful drinking environment in Ireland in which drunkenness has been effectively normalised and is often celebrated, and where alcohol is widely available at very cheap prices."

Celebrating drunkenness?  Very cheap prices?  I repeat – what fucking planet are these people on? 

Naturally they hint that drinking has to be "denormalised".  I suppose they'll be calling for a ban on drinking in pubs next?

I wish our little chrysalises well tonight.  I hope they enjoy themselves.  I hope they soon blossom into butterflies who will see the Nannies for the puritan killjoys they really are.

Because if the Nannies win, they will be entering into an incredibly dull, grey, humourless, joyless world where all the fun and risk has been removed for their own safety.