Forgive me but I've just about had enough. Long-term followers will already know that I suffer from a terrible affliction that I've battled with on a daily basis for some time now, but I simply can't go on like this any more. My nanny allergy has blown up with the Government's latest intrusion into my private life. The Nanny State has finally managed to out-nanny itself by releasing an iPhone application to keep track of alcohol units.
That's right! Over the Christmas festivities, Nu Labour is urging owners of flash mobile phones to download a free 'app' that enables drinkers to tap in the number of alcoholic units they're consuming as they tip them down the hatch. Brilliant!
Government public health minister Gillian Merron said: “It is all too easy to lose track of how much you drink. So as the festive parties start to build up, this innovative tool will help people keep tabs on their drinking – wherever they are. It’s one of many ways the Government is helping people to understand how much they are drinking. Sticking within the NHS recommended limits means you reduce the risk of serious conditions such as mouth cancer and strokes.”
God they're good to us. They steal huge amounts of our money, squander it on illegal wars, failing schools and hospitals and then spend the loose change left over on developing a computer program so we can start spying on ourselves. And who knows... there may even be a little routine in the program that relays your drinking record back to NHS computer servers in real time so it can keep a tally there too. Should you stray over the conservative and totally arbitrary Government guideline, klaxons and sirens will go off at NHS Central where an Alcohol Rehabilitation and Support Education officer (ARSE) will be scrambled to your boozer to hand out sensible drinking advice leaflets and Alka Seltzers.
I never imagined that Nu Labour would go so far as to try to take the spirit out of Christmas, but with this miserable little 'app' I think it's come close. I wonder if any of the geniuses that came up with this topping idea ever wondered how drunks are going to be able to accurately input their alcoholic units when they're totally wasted. I can't use my iPhone with any great accuracy when I'm sober so I dare not get drunk as I wouldn't be able to use it at all.
Oh well... with all my pain killers I doubt I'll be in need of Gordon Brown's iPiss application as I'm three sheets to the wind on Oramorph most of the time anyway.
iPiss?
ReplyDelete*laughs heartily*
Great rant XTM, keep them coming! The ARSE acronym is brilliant.
ReplyDeleteCount your blessings. The Labour Party are, and are happy to be, the modern incarnation of the Roundheads -- and they actually abolished Christmas!
ReplyDeleteBy the way, my arrow and control keys don't work in your message boxes. Any ideas?
I think this is a really bad idea, what could go wrong with a phone app to measure drinking .... DRINKING GAMES ;) (People input there drinking on say a weekend, come Monday, they compare the results, "yes I was more pissed than you....."
ReplyDeleteBad BAD idea.
Regards,
Kat from Perth.
Like I'm gonna be able to see my mobile phone when I'm drunk! lol
ReplyDeleteGill
Beautiful rant. I do love the idea of the ARSES. They should wear ARSE badges so we know who they are. Making efforts to input your units into the iPhone on the Christmas night out may well result in an increase in lost iPhones - one free app I won't be downloading.
ReplyDeleteHaving been diagnosed with gout I was pleased when the doctor told me that gouty people tend not to have liver problems. This is because gouty people usually eat well (though there is far more to it than that -- heredity and other factors are involved). But the point is that people who eat badly suffer from atrophy of the stomach lining, and what they do eat is not digested as it should be into the bowel but goes to the liver instead.
ReplyDeleteSo there you are. Eat well and be kind to your liver! In Spain anyway.
Must be the Aussie interpretation but I also think it would be used to compete. Maybe slightly more convenient that comparing hospital admissions for stomach pumping.
ReplyDeleteOf course the next version iPiss2.0 will then tell you when to stop drinking and start looking for a cab home before the missus brains you with a rolling pin.
so i was reading this aloud to the other half and whilst opening the second bottle of Fifth Leg Margaret River white, he announced he was going to develop an "app" so that people (mostly I assume those in government)could measure how big a wanker they are.
ReplyDeleteSounds good to me!
Hope you're feeling better XTM
Cheers
Mich
LOL! I like the idea of an app that calls you a cab when it decides it is time to go home! Would have been useful last Christmas night out!!!!! (Enough said!)
ReplyDeleteThis as a drinking game I can see, as a serious aid to reducing drink related disease or injuries, no! People drink because they choose to. Start taking the choice away, and people rebel! QED, more drink consumed rather than less, just everyone lies about it.
Is it not better to try and educate people sensibly about the dangers and leave it to them?
Personally, as someone who has been abused and assaulted by more drunks than I care to think about, I think if you are out your head on drink or drugs and do something stupid, you should be made to pay! Big time! Abuse or assault a member of the medical profession and you take what is coming and it won't be pleasant! Think what happens to the innocent! How much worse can it be for the guilty???!
For those who have drunk their body to destruction, why should we waste transplants on them when there are those out there who will look after them?
Choose to drink, choose the consequnces, don't expect others to clear up the mess.
An app isn't going to change the attitude that folk have to their health.
I doubt if even NuLab are foolish enough to think that people will use 'iPiss' in earnest, but at least it enables them to say that they've done that little bit more in helping to curb excess alcohol consumption .......... even though it won't make a damn bit of difference.
ReplyDeleteGood afternoon ETM.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, what a stupid load a nonsense - wonder how much someone got paid for that??
However, I like the advert below "Analyse Hair for Alcohol" - guess with me that depends on the percentage proof of L'Oreal - because I'm worth it of course!
Happy Tuesday - hope that you are recovered from the trip to town last week and that proper recovery can re-commence.
Best regards, Cats' Mother
Chelsea Gang send regards to Whisky - we were away at the weekend and the Gang to eat anything but prawns - Sainsburys ran out and my poor neighbours were distraught by the time we got back!
I don't have an iPhone so I'll just have to count the empties instead. Sometimes I wonder whether the binmen are recording how many wine bottles we recycle.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry XTM, but is it really a tradition to go drinking alcohol at Christmas in your parts.
ReplyDelete"The spirit of Christmas" is quite different here. People stay at home having quiet celebrations with carols, gift exchanging and traditional food; some later in the night venture out and flock to the churches. In fact the public places are all closed on December 24th.
Maybe you celebrate Christmas like December 31st? Some people partake of a glass of sparkling wine at midnight together. Some others exaggerate, and make an unsightly spectacle of themselves ... but then, as long as they don't jeopardize other peoples' lives, the ensuing headache is their coffee alone; if they choose it, then they have to live with it; they just must not blame it on anyone but themselves ...
Best wishes to you, I hope the leg muscles are building up nicely! Greetings from Styria (uncomfortable rain and greyness has set in here today, too)
Hi Barbara
ReplyDeleteOur Christmas is much like yours although there is perhaps a bit more of the December 31st about it. We always stay in on Christmas Eve but a lot of young people go out to pubs. Lots of people go to church for Midnight Mass. December 25th is our big family day with turkey, presents and a drink or two and plenty of people with a hangover. All shops etc are shut on that day. It's not unusual here to work during the day of the 24th or at least a half day.
Muscles are building up, thanks. Off to the hospital on Thursday to see if my cast is going to be taken off and to have x-rays on my leg. I'm hoping to find out a bit more about my eventual leg length too. I need to get some proper shoes before I start trying to learn to walk in earnest.
Yep, there's another app that is only going to take up memory. Counting empties is easier to do than hit tiny little black buttons in a semi-dark room.
ReplyDeleteMy adverts are for "Alcohol Treatment" and "End Alcohol Withdrawal"--as one who doesn't drink anything stronger than ginger beer I've always heard to cure the hangover is to drink more so wouldn't that also work to end alcohol withdrawal?
Cheers! Bottoms up and all that rot! [my British sayings come from the movies :o)]
Have a great day and may the sun shine and dry up all the rain puddles (I've seen photos of flooding)
Libby in snowy Canada
can you actually drink out of an iPhone? I want one.
ReplyDeleteWant to fix the NHS? There's an App for that!
ReplyDeleteI thought that mobile phones were for contacting friends to ask them to meet for a drink (or, at worst, to ask them to come and give you a lift home because you have had few too many).
ReplyDelete"Brown = Pooh", and always has.
Colin
Hi XTM,
ReplyDeleteactually the shops are open here on Dec. 24th, as well, I think until noon. People sometimes overcrowd the supermarkets fearful of starving within the next few days and then they throw a high percentage of their food stuffs into the garbage after the holidays. It's a bit weird really. The schools are closed from 24th of December until January 6th. And pubs are closed on Christmas Eve (maybe even in the afternoon). The days for visting family are the 25th and 26th (public holidays), and this year the 27th as well (Sunday). I guess some pubs will be open, but the shops, schools and non-indispensable enterprises are all closed. A nice slow-down. You get to read long novels all in one go, or build puzzles on the living room floor with 2000 pieces and no interuption. Or cook, eat and digest lengthy meals ... at my parents' house there always used to be a turkey as well.
I'm looking forward to hopefully good tidings of your leg development then, best wishes! Barbara (Styria)
I think that is one App too far...
ReplyDeleteI'm home after a lovely night with a friend and it's time for bed. I've consumed a few units but have no idea how many as I don't have that handy app. However, I suspect I may survive the night - and hopefully a bit longer... Drunken and affectionate greetings. Sleep well XTM x
ReplyDeleteGood grief. Now these app-addicted idiots will be able to tweet their friends and drink iToasts, or go on cyber pub-crawls, buying iRounds without ever actually meeting up.
ReplyDeleteHealth and healing to you XTM.
Government public health minister Gillian Merron said..."I am a complete waste of public money and space. I am so stupid I make 'The Thick of It' seem real. I represent, in my very being, everthing that is so stupid and dumb about Nanny State. I will self-implode in five seconds."
ReplyDeleteIf only.
I have now downloaded this, and look forward to posting my score on Monday! Looking for a world record!!
ReplyDeleteand someone got paid for that idea? WHAT!!!! Probably the same twit who thinks that preggie women in wales need to have pink parking badges so they can park in disabled spaces - as if being pregnant is an illness or disability. Why can't we just make informed choices and get on with our lives without being treated as if we were children.....maybe even be permited to use some common sense! please give us some credit
ReplyDeleteAs a late addition to this post:
ReplyDeleteNews Just in @ news.com.au
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/drinkers-get-chance-to-check-xmas-intake/story-e6frfku0-1225809249242
"BRITISH drinkers are being offered the chance to compare how much alcohol they're guzzling compared to fellow boozers, in an interactive scheme launched for the Christmas party season.
Giant touch-screens have been erected in central London, Glasgow, Birmingham and Leeds letting people input what they have drunk in the previous 24 hours, and see how it compares to the national average."
LOL .. Now you can't tell me that won't get competitive ...