Alcohol

Last year, in a nod towards austerity, I gave up my membership to Milk and Honey, a cocktail club in Soho. I rationalised that as a non-member, I could still book a dimly lit, silver-toned booth downstairs to enjoy their delicious Penicillin — a reviving concoction of peaty whisky, honey, ginger and lemon — at least until 11 p.m. However, as I sipped my farewell M&H dry martini, made with a twist of lemon and some fragrant Junipero gin, it struck me that there is something comforting in having a regular drinking den. Clearly, research was needed. My requirements were simple: superlative cocktails, convivial atmosphere and within walking distance of

Mary Ann Sieghart has a great piece in the Independent today about how, inadvertently, we have designed a system that almost encourages young people to drink irresponsibly. As she argues, a lot of problems have come, oddly, from making it harder for people to drink under age in pubs.  As Sieghart puts it, ‘And because we were under 18, we knew we had to remain inconspicuous. The landlord would tolerate our presence as long as we didn’t embarrass ourselves or him. We didn’t dare get smashed or he wouldn’t allow us back. And because we tended to meet the same group of friends in the same pub, being banned was

Theresa May has taken the truncheon to the previous government’s rather singular anti-social behaviour policy. The ASBO, of which more than half were ignored in 2008, will be a thing of the past; supermarkets will not be able to sell alcohol at less than cost price; and 24 four hour drinking licenses will be subject to local vetoes, even if the residents do not live near or adjacent to pubs and clubs. On confronting anti-social behaviour, May pledges that ultimate political cliché – a coherent and comprehensive strategy. At the moment, there are few details beyond fines for selling drink to underage drinkers. Limiting booze intake is welcome, but alcohol

Happy New Year – and have a drink! That’s the message from the new year issue of The Spectator, where Leah McLaren has written a superb piece answering the Liam Donaldsons of this world. Here she is, in full flow: “Almost all of this country’s most famous names been unapologetic boozers. From Kate Moss to Francis Bacon to Christopher Hitchens to the Queen Mum, Brits have a great tradition of not letting their functional alcoholism drag them down. Without it, arguably, we would not have punk rock, romantic poetry or basic democratic freedoms — for as Churchill urged us to remember, he ‘took more out of alcohol’ than alcohol took

One line from the Sunday papers is still haunting me today. In the Mail on Sunday, Phillip Blond wrote that, “one million children have alcohol-addicted parents”. Think about that for a minute. What hope can these children have growing up in these kind of households? How can we as a society ensure that these children have a decent chance in life despite such a challenging start? There are no easy answers to these questions. Considering the state’s appalling record with children in care, taking these children away from their parents is not the answer. But then what is? It seems that the only answer is to deal with the problem