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Time for children

Posted on October 27th, 2009 in Uklondonpubs

I have never enjoyed a happy hour, alcohol talking, and discovered that that very soon. The happy hours-keep talking ethylene are an invention of the guild of British hospitality that we know what suffering is, fighting all his life against standards that until recently were forced to dispense alcoholic beverages at fixed times, as consultation, and one might almost say that prescription. Even today, released the time limit for its traditional inhibitions, English pub remains at the clinic, the amount of alcohol is measured by the bartender with the same caution and the same rigor that puts the practitioner to give you an injection or blood pumping and analysis.
Living in London I was young I was struck to see in a downtown bar, especially in St Martin’s Lane, a street of pubs and theaters near Trafalgar Square, the announcement of the happy hours, and especially his time, eleven am, for example, or six in the afternoon. I confess here that I am a drinker very consistent but very limited, never tasted alcohol during the day except for solemnities, but by nightfall, especially if I’m in front of the machine, I’m glad there with a little whiskey ( or two) or a longer gin and tonic. Do not say no to cocktails if the opportunity arises, I also like the wine at dinner, and never forgive you after dinner a glass of brandy, a product which, by dint of frequent, I have become something of a connoisseur . My last binge in the strict sense of the word took place not think I am right, the night of year-end 1995.

I wonder now reading the news that the Catalan government, I guess with the agreement of their three-headed policies, just banned by law (passed unanimously in parliament) free bars, free drinks, alcoholic flat rates and all forms of happy hours, which, as you know, consist in offering two drinks for the price of a less promising in the hours of the day. The sanctions on those responsible for places of entertainment ranging from simple offenders fined 6,000 euros for gross misconduct, which can reach 600,000, assume that in cases the latter, where the happy hour is accompanied by murder or Customer rape. The new law also punishes promotional parties alcoholic beverages or cocktails, and although not specified in its articles, is to pursue de facto one of the few pleasures that still remained in the act of going out to dinner at a restaurant, just as are the prices: the glass of the house. A man named Plasencia, CEO of Salud Pública de la Generalitat, has explained in words meridian: “We must protect the citizen, and we want to prevent and curb the uncontrolled consumption of alcohol.” The trouble is that this does not seem to be another nine pages of the Trimurti catalana. Trinidad Jimenez, State Health Minister (if I may be the second capital), has applauded the approval of this Act, ipso facto, announcing that his ministry is working on a similar rule for all Spanish allegedly implicated in the crime of wanting to save few euros in the second round.

The concept of happy hour always struck me as something ingrained British as queuing in empty shops or tea with milk. In a society that still lives in part punitive codes captured by the time of Queen Victoria, the drinker was treated like a child, and the pint bottle that is equivalent to that space as regulated hours. The obedient baby gift after the bell rang at the pub stopped drinking that cup was free avant la lettre, and one with a little imagination, sado-masochistic, I could think about the image of the strict nanny but deep kindly opening the chest and the hot fluid gives a free drink.

But we have what we need to be breastfed by a state-nurse? First there was the snuff, whose restriction in public places, although for now so mild, so unhappy makes some of my best friends. After prostitution, which is eliminated by decree without eradicating the hand that moves money and professional exploits of mercenary love. And now we come to the end of happy hour, a new and grotesque episode in the process of infantilized, to take away the ability to decide our private acts and return to the time the child, without question, has to go to bed because they sent the dad and mom.