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Should we call time on happy hour?
Andrew Neather and Liz Hoggard11.11.08
NO
Few brews are more nausea-inducing than the present cocktail of sermonising and chest-beating over drinking. Yet now MPs and other do-gooders, fresh from lambasting middle-class wine drinkers, are fulminating over the evils of happy hours. It's hypocritical, joyless - and it won't work.
I dislike many of the public signs of binge drinking as much as anyone. But few people who enjoy kicking off their evening out at a happy hour will get hammered; far fewer still will do anyone else any harm at the end of it. And if they do get drunk - well, sorry, nanny, but that's perfectly legal.
There are times - after a crappy day at work during the onset of recession, say - when you feel like drinking rather more than the official daily unit count. And I may have said some pretty stupid things while three sheets to the wind but I've yet to hit anyone or get behind the wheel of a car.
Shocking though it may be to ministers, many adults do sometimes get drunk. Such naughtiness has even been known within the hallowed portals of the Mother of Parliaments; indeed, some might argue that evenings in its subsidised watering holes are one long happy hour. Others now bleating are happy to knock back a few too many champagnes at the latest book launch or media party. But cut-price Bacardi Breezers in the pub? How vulgar!
People will always find ways to get drunk. If they then break the law or are otherwise a nuisance, they deserve the consequences. Until then, mine's a pint, thanks.
YES
My friends and I call it Unhappy Hour. There's nothing worse than getting to the pub at 6pm and finding drunk businessmen draped across the bar. Aggressively jolly on cut-price booze, they are determined to have a good time. You just know it's going to end in a fight. Or borderline sexual harassment.
Now I like a drink as much as the next person but sophisticated drinking takes time. There's something totally anti-life about people necking pints against the clock. Especially the ones who begrudge "wasting" any money on food. Part of the joy of socialising is sitting down and unwinding - and that certainly won't be happening during a happy-hour binge. People spend their whole time downing their glasses and consulting their watches to get one last "hit" before curfew.
I understand the temptation of getting blotto. Everything from debt to dating improves through a fine mist of alcohol. But for those of us in our forties, it's a dangerous distraction.
Forget six pints of cut-price Czech bat's blood and opt for a leisurely cocktail somewhere glorious such as the Cigar Bar at Claridge's or The Blue Bar at the Berkeley. You get the architecture thrown in for free. It's like starring in your own private film.
As a hedonist, I wouldn't dream of taking the higher moral ground. But I hate the idea of desperate pleasure.
There's something deeply calculating about happy hour. Alcohol companies want you pissed, and they want you compliant. Don't fall for it.
Reader views (9)
will those idiots in london please stop their interfering in my life they in their house have cheap booze and food they have happy hours everyday as they laugh at us and fetch in new laws just to keep them and their like in work for astronomical wages and all the perks that go with it i'm disgusted leave the normal people alone and put your snouts back in the trough and out of our business
- G.Robinson, doncaster uk
I’ve been drinking for 18 years. I’ve never been arrested or hospitalised. Just because morons behave poorly when they’ve had a drink. the government wants to ensure that it costs me more.
I am sick and tired of the nanny state infringing on my life when I have done nothing wrong. Punish the minority, not the majority.
- Garry, london
Please tell the ministers wishing to rid of happy hour to make sure they look at that disgusting watering hole in London where yobs can drink all day at reduced prices and are the free to cause mayhem up and down the country, whats it called? oh yeah Houses of Parliment
- Fergus, london
Interesting point by Andrew about the House of Commons bar (they also have a heavily subsidised restaurant, I believe). While of course I'm not suggesting that they would ever abuse it, it would be heartening to see our MPs surrender this perk before passing any legislation to restrict drinks promotions available to the general public. Otherwise it would be a case of "do as I say, not as I do", would it not?
Liz's arguments appear entirely self-interested - she doesn't quite care for the idea that some people sometimes get drunk, and thinks the world would be a jolly better place if everyone could please be forced to adopt her more "sophisticated" drinking habits. No mention of the wider social, policing, health etc issues, mind you. No, just as long as everyone is drinking from a martini glass while staring at the ceiling of Claridges and daydreaming about Sex & the City, life will be just dandy. But given that that's as attractive a proposition to most people as happy hour is to you, Liz, then why the need for a change in the status quo? Liz can carry on her "sophisticated drinking" of "leisurely cocktails" in glorious bars with their "free architecture", while the unwashed masses sexually harass and fight each other down the local boozer.
- Rob, London
Why can't the government just leave us alone!?
Surely the question should be 'why we drink' and not 'what we drink'?
I do not wish in a Nanny Nation and would therefore appreciate if the State would leave mine, and others lifestyles alone!
- Kalstar, London
Calling time on happy hour, that would be treating the symptoms and would just move the problem elsewhare. I have no answers to hand but we should be looking for the causes.
- Francis, Surrey, England
Andrew Neather blithely ignores the increase in drink related accidents/incidents since 24 hour drinking was allowed. Whilst he may never have hit anyone or got behind the wheel of a car whilst inebriated, an increased number of people have since all day drinking came in. Its cleat that a significant number of people just can't be trusted to behave responsibly and the rest of the country is left to pick up the pieces, one way or another. Anything that reduces the temptation to over-indulge is, regretably, neccessary.
- Robert N, London
Forgive me for asking but don't MPs get subsidized drinks in their bar(s) in the House of Commons? Isn't that a grand type of Happy Hour?
Perhaps these subsidized drinks should be abolished immediately PRIOR to ANY talks of abolishing Happy Hours for everybody else?
- Fraser, Telford Park
"There's nothing worse than getting to the pub at 6pm and finding drunk businessmen draped across the bar." Oh yes there is, Liz, mainly in the form of overwight slappers bulging out of too small and tight clothing and off their faces on alcopops! That said, most people in this country don't go out to get bladdered, and can control themselves even after a few pints. I hope that's the case, anyway, as our dear, elected MPs seem to be at it most nights in the cheap bars of the Palace of Westminster.
- Paul, London
