Ten green bottles hiding on the wall
There are times when I wonder if the Puritans are really serious or are they just taking the piss?
I came across an article last night that damn near made me wet myself with laughter.
First look: ‘Booze curtains’ at centre of controversial Seanad debate.
Booze curtains? Booze curtains?? Mwaaahahahahaha! Good one. They nearly had me believing them for a moment.
I mean to say, who could possibly come up with a scheme as ludicrous as this? Little booths in the corner of the supermarket looking like some kind of Santa’s Grotto? Curtains draped across shelves to make them look like a window, or a doorway to the kitchen?
Okay, just for a moment, let’s assume they are serious. I wander into my local shop looking for a fine bottle of the hard stuff. I see a curtain in the corner and pull it back. Woops – wrong curtain – I’m looking out onto the back yard. I try another curtain, and sure enough I see bottles. But I can’t see the one I want so I pull the curtains right back so I can see the whole shelf. I find my bottle and depart, leaving the curtains wide open [why the fuck should I close them? It’s not my job or my shop?] Bang goes the secret of the curtains in the corner!
I suppose they are thinking of the cheeeldren again? Maybe they have a point. Studies have shown that 100% of Ireland’s alcoholics started of on their deadly mission of self destruction after seeing a bottle of beer displayed in the local shop. The bottles stand there in a row all screaming “DRINK ME” and who can possibly resist that? Certainly not the parents who will instantly give in to pester-power and buy a large bottle of vodka for little Patrick or wee Mary. The poor cheeeldren don’t stand a chance after one glimpse of a bottle of Jameson’s finest.
So what’s next in this insane world of the Puritans? Banning booze from pubs? Conning people to only drink outside the home in the garden [and then only after the cheeeldren are safely tucked in bed]? Second hand alcohol? Third hand alcohol? Only selling alcohol in standardised black plastic one litre bottles plastered with pictures of diseased livers and battered spouses? Being banned from driving or even working if you have partaken of the Devil’s Liquid in the last six months?
You really couldn’t make it up!
Child-resistant bottles/cans of booze, hiding all the beer pumps under the bar, hiding all the spirits under the bar, plain-packaging for beer pumps, beer glasses (or any other kind of glass that ‘may’ hold alcohol) will have to be a solid black (or more likely vomit green) matt colour else the cheeldren might see the beer and instantly become alcoholics, child-resistant beer glasses, plain beer mats, plain bar towels, adults consuming alcohol banned from the bar when cheeldren are present, plain packaging for pub livery, masks for all drinkers in case the cheeldren smell alcohol on the adults breath and instantly become alcoholics, all bar snacks/crisps hidden out of sight under the bar in case the cheeldren get cravings for salt, plain-packaging for the beer delivery lorries, plain packaging for beer warehouses and manufacturing plants ……. the list is endless.
C’Mon Grandad. All you need is a little imagination to create this hell that the puritans crave
I’m just waiting for them to really get going on food. That wil be great fun when every Joe Soap in the street suddenly finds himself being Nannied to death. He needn’t come to me for sympathy!
Hi GD,
Was so smugly confidant that I was ahead of you on paragraph four.
As soon as I saw ‘curtains’ I thought “Aye ,aye I know where he’s going with this ! ”
To my astonishment no young ladies in a state of dishabille in fitting rooms.Did you
miss a trick or do I really need the mind-bleach ?
Good grief! You have changing areas in your local shop? What do you change in there?
As an aside, when the daughter was three or so we passed a room marked “Baby Changing Room”. She asked me what that was about so I told her that grown ups who didn’t like their babies could get them changed in there for a better one. She was remarkably well behaved for a long time after.
You want to be careful of the curtains for the fitting rooms
Big sign overhead – Wimmin, not wine?
You must be very well coordinated. In my fantasy I pull the curtain back and wipe out an entire row of booze bottles. My get away would be slowed down drastically as I pick my way through broken glass. If I slip it would surely smart.
You walk on the glass and then fall down in agony. Two advantages to this – you can claim a fortune in injury compensation, and while you are down there you can lap up the spillage and within minutes…. no pain.
You may mock, GD, but you do realise that every drug addict on the planet started on milk, don’t you? It’s marketed to the cheeldren as a healthy drink, but look where it leads to!
All those milk formulas should be prescription only, and as for breasts….well, they should be banned forthwith!
It’s a jungle out there, GD, full of sharks trying to ensnare our precious youth into a life of slavery and addiction.
Thank heavens we have those selfless souls in Public Health who devote their lives to saving us all from perdition. Can you imagine what it would be like if they weren’t there? We would all be doomed to making our own choices, and who knows where that would lead! We would end up doing stuff that we enjoy, rather than saving the planet and living to an incontinent Altzheimer’s blur. How awful would that be? Quick, hand me a hair shirt so I can decamp to my yurt and purge my mind of these thoughts of self-determination.
Ban breasts? Surely you mean they should be restricted to over 18s? Or maybe over 60s?
It’s all true of course. For centuries we have been led by the nose by evil people producing stuff that we might want. We should of course only consume that which the state provides. The state knows best. In fact we should hand total control of our lives to the state, and those who don’t like the idea can move to that haven of freedom – North Korea.
Next they’ll introduce a Bill to compel lingerie shops to partition off the dummies displaying the delicate underwear. We can’t allow teenage boys visiting such stores to fall into esoteric fantasies and temptations you know.
In the lower house Dail the honourable deputy for Kerry, Danny Healy-Rae, has injected some plain-speaking realism into the climate change debate with his challenging remarks on nuclear bomb tests and the Ozone layer.
They’ll have to ban all printed media too, not to mention the Interwebs [that hotbed of radical ideas…].
I very rarely agree with the HRs but every now and then they come up with some rock solid common sense.
A snug in every supermarket, seems like a great idea. I like the idea of slipping in for a quick pint instead of having to push the trolley around.
A smoking snug in every supermarket! Jayzus but it would do wonders for business. Even I might cross the threshold again.
About 20 years ago, when I was living in the south of Greece, I would occasionally drive up to Athens to go to a large supermarket near the old airport called AB (they were thin on the ground in those days, but they are like Tesco now, bloody everywhere) to buy stuff unavailable in the provinces. In the centre of the supermarket, there was a small bar, where you could stop and drink a beer or two and have a cigarette while contemplating your next foray into the aisles.
It was just so…..civilised.
Whatever happened to that way of life? Nowadays, even here in Greece, you aren’t expected to smoke in the supermarket, and I don’t think any of them have bars anymore.
Such a shame.
Booze curtains – velour soaked in rum, suck as required.
I blame health and safety, it’s preventing natural selection. In saner times these idiots would have been given a good clip around ear then told to get a real job, their own stupidity placing them in harms way and removing them from the gene pool. Meanwhile anyone with a degree of common sense could get on with their lives.
Dear Grandad
The local cash and carry has had a curtain across the special room for cigarettes and other tobacco related paraphernalia ever since the shutters of
shameintrigue were introduced. There is a sign outside prohibiting anyone from entering unless they are in the tobacco retail business. – the wrong kind of grown ups are prohibited from looking at tobacco products. I’m not sure what happens when a tobacco retailer is stocking up when he has his kids with him. Perhaps he has to park them outside the curtain of intrigue and leave them at the mercy of a warehouse full of paedophiles.Don’t these smoker controllers ever think of the children?
DP
Ha! Next they’ll be curtaining off the vineyards- can’t have the kiddiewinks getting ideas from grapes. And hop fields. And barley fields. Be a damned big curtain 😀