Did they ask
sailors?
I seem to remember imbibing a tot or two during the drunken period that was my service in the RN. (How can 20 years disappear without you noticing?)
That'll be my seacoat with the rum in the pockets.
It's official: Media professionals are the UK's heaviest boozers, followed by IT workers and "service-sector" operatives. That's according to a Department of Health survey which found that hacks and the like are working their way through roughly 44 units a week - resolutely ignoring NHS recommended limits of 21 to 28 units for …
Hey, I hate american's as much as any other average Joe Shmoe, you get me? But I sure enough must say there ain't nothing wrong with "real estate".
Seriously, the only reason that we're starting to use the term here is that there's no suitable alternative. What should we call it, "property"? I consider me computer my "property". "Land"? Many deeds hold only habitation rights -- any mineral or agricultural usage of the land itself isn't covered.
We have no word, so we borrow someone else's. Thou can be reet sure, there ain't nowt wrong wit that.
Anyway, maybe if IT people are piss-heads, the drinks industry should start to address our specific needs, as we're such good customers. How about pubs with VPNs to the local businesses - so we can work and drink at the same time (without contravening the "no alcohol on the premises" rules?). Wifi connected fruit machines, whiteboards (without pens, naturally) in the snug and charging stations for laptops - plus of course cubicles for lone drinkers.
I'm sure they could come up with a few IT themed beers, too. How about renaming "6X" as "0x6"?
""After-work drinks are often part of the fabric of our working lives, and it's often tempting to go along with the crowd, even when you know your body needs a rest."
Losers!
Firstly, you need some proper friends, ie, ones that DON'T work where you do, get a life (thats something that isnt work)
Secondly, get some more respect for your body, it IS YOU,
If you had to put up with IT users, Windows, SAP, IBM, Microsoft, IT Managers, Elbonian support, and generally lead a life that makes you regard "Dilbert" as a documentary, you'd drink like IT people too. Caffeine can only take you so far...
I'm assuming hacks have similar problems - trying to get politicians to answer a question is like trying to nail the smoke to the mirror for a start, and I imagine they have many other similar situations
is about 5 units a day.
which is 2 pints of decent beer or 2 weaker pints and a single whisk(e)y chaser.
Or a pint at lunch and a glass of wine with your dinner.
Not really my idea of serious alcoholism, especially as there is some evidence to suggest that 1-2 units a day is beneficial and that in order to negate the benefits of these 1-2 units you would need to take 9 units.
However the research is all a little vague and it seems there are no independent studies that can be trusted.
"Real Estate" is as useless an expression in the U.S. as you seem to find it in the U.K. Mineral rights are almost always excluded in the transaction. Water is considered a mineral (at least in the western states), so many agricultural practices are controlled by someone other than the title holder as well.
If I'm not mistaken, the phrase "real estate" actually came about from the Spanish - Real being the Spanish word for Royal. All of the American "Realtors" are actually working for King Juan Carlos without knowing it!
Mines the one from Red Blazer Reality - the one that used to have M Simpson on it.
Totally agree. 34 units is for wimps. Try 134 units a week for a while, or perhaps your entire lifetime. The old uns are the pickled ones.
Of course, we could abstain and be bored shitless, perhaps live longer in poverty and having to decide whether to heat the home or eat a square meal a day and watch endless Eastenders (choose your soap). Or we might even die younger having abstained (hic).
I prefer the pedal to the metal.
My land is real estate. A realtor did much of the "dumb heavy work" when I was purchasing it. It ain't us Yanks, its The Guardian which made the error.
@Dave: I have mineral rights "all the way to the center of the earth", or so it says on the deed. I also own the watershed and ground water of nearly the entire acreage. With this many horses, the water is mandatory and a requirement ... The mineral rights were just icing ... Not that there is anything valuable underground here ... I don't think so, anyway :-)
I'm sure I read somewhere that the doctors who came up with the 14/21 units a week recommendations have recently admitted that they plucked the numbers out of thin air as "they sounded about right". There has been no scientific calculation on whether more than this is actually harmful and the only scientific research done worked out that alcohol was good for you and you would need to consum around 60/70 units a week to get back down to the harm done as a teetotaler.
The 14/21 units a week is about as unscientific as BMI.
It's not the users that drive me to drink. I don't mind their general cluelessness - after all it is my job to find out what they want and turn it into real, usable systems. Nope the ones that drive me to drink are the stupid bosses with their stupid visions, their incessant interminable global webcasts and their unethically large bonuses and expense claims when it is me that does the work that brings home the bacon. But do they let me share in the success - of course not! They'd drive me to drugs too if I had access to any.
>Of course, we could abstain and be bored shitless, perhaps live longer in poverty
I've seen a large number of contractors earning an obscene amount of money living in near poverty due to spending all that money directly on beer or indirectly because of beer related expenses, ie. expensive cars that frequently need mysterious repairs, insurance claims are not an option.
If you split the IT workers into permies and contractors then I think the contractors would give the hacks a damn good race. I spent close to twenty years contracting, all of it away from home and the expat scene for most revolves around British bars. Fortunately I didn't fall into to the trap for two main reasons. Alcohol affects me very quickly, even standing 1,9m and weighing 100Kg I can get very merry on a couple of strong continental beers. Secondly the after affects lay me low for a couple of days and losing two days of serious money soon educates you. I may or may not live longer but it certainly won't be in poverty.
"After-work drinks are often part of the fabric of our working lives..."
thought that went out in the eighties - being retired, didn't realise it had come back in.
Good Oh! - p'raps I'll go back to work <g>.
@real estate - yes, royal - but Norman-French I think (all UK land belongs to the Crown - 'Freehold' doesn't mean you *own* it - you hold it (probably) in Fee Simple under the Crown).
AndyD 8-)#