Hello, welcome back. Did you have a good time? Perhaps you never went? What about the relatives? Did they 'came and went'? How about the mother-in-law?
No, don't write to me... I know, there are some wonderful mothers in law. Kind, wise and helpful. And, behind every great man there is an astonished mother in law...
I have news; the NHS has acquired its very own mother-in-law. Sadly not the sympathetic, sensible and supportive variety. More the bossy, superior and pokin'-her-nose-in, kind. She arrived, unannounced and is pronouncing on our drinking habits.
Guidance on safe drinking is incomprehensible. One unit is half a 175ml glass. Is that a small, medium or large glass? Half a bottle of wine has five units... nearly double the daily 'limit' for women. Half a pint of beer has the same units as half a wine glass, a pint has three units... cider five... so does a cocktail.
Is a bottle 750ml; in which case half a bottle is 375ml, or five glasses of 75ml, which is not 87.5ml which is half a 175ml glass. Got that?
A sherry trifle has as much as yer mother-in-law glugs into it. If you are pregnant don't; but if you must... 2 units twice a week... not four units once a week.
Men can drink 3-4 units a day (How much is a unit? Still dunno) but no more than 21 a week, not 7 in three days, or ten in two... women; two to three in fourteen. Are you getting all this?
What if you are a small bloke or a big woman? Does the size of your personal sewage and plumbing works make any difference? What about age? Over 65 is the cut-off. Why? Some 50 years olds are knackered and some 70 year olds, Olympians.
And then, there is the calorie thing. Think of drinking doughnuts. Confused? Me, too. I have no idea how many doughnuts you can get into half a glass or a pregnant 65 year old. Or, how many Bamboo Slammers you can throw over a sherry trifle.
So, thank goodness for the NHS' very own mother in law, AKA Sally Davies, AKA, Chief Medical Officer, AKA Hello magazine, E-list celebrity... wannabe.
In an intimate magazine expose, about her glamorous life and life-style, (You've gotta read this, you really just must!) Dame Sal' (What a Gal) tells us about her penchant for Andrew Yeo's design and shows off her plate glass rear. And her cut-glass front.
She eulogises about her beautiful Purbeck marble floor that 'flows into a long galley kitchen, with well-stocked cupboards'. Dame Sal' (What a Gal') tells us how much she 'enjoys cooking'... alas there is no recipe for her sherry trifle. You have to read this!
What a domestic goddess (What a Gal' our Sal'!); she 'makes bread and jam' and two mornings a week, she 'rises', at six, to 'exercise'. The rest of us get up and go to the gym or get kids off to school.
The pretension, the scent of poseur and whiff of self-importance goes on and on. Three-jobs-Sal' tells us she can 'provide no evidence', to explain the 'source of her prodigious energy'.
"If I could package it, I'd be rich, wouldn't I?" ...she vaunts.
If the best we can do for public health messages, is a hopeless website and a 'Hello' magazine lookey-likey, confusion, disarray and bewilderment I'd normally suggest we should meet-up and talk about it over a drink.
Sorry, I can't be there... I'm having a dry-January.
