Ummm - you said "drunk" - I'm gonna report you to the gummint.

The news that a notorious student pub in Palmerston North is encouraging students to get "drunk" in their student pub is one of the more pathetic indictments of this country's "PC" capture (that has occured this month at least) - because of the hysterical outcry over the pub's supposedly "irresponsible" attitude. The offending writing on the blackboard outside the establishment:

"Why study for exams when you can get drunk with your mates?"
but:
under section 154A of the Sale of Liquor Act, which prohibits encouraging people to get drunk..."

That's right we can't have people getting drunk in a pub - that's not what they're for - pubs are for sipping coffee and consuming a maximum of one standard drink per hour and not smoking. Welcome to New Zealand, the land under a regime of thin-lipped deputy head-mistresses. Fireworks will be next... basically anything that excites, is spontaneous and is enjoyed predominantly by males and young people generally is gradually being banned. "Now that's progressive!" as the Christian conservative Jim Anderton usually remarks.

Aren't we so bloody precious? I am tempted to say that this bout of social conservatism and nannying is the result of the ascendency of females in public life (the Mayor who complained is a Heather and the Alcohol Advisory Council executive is a Sandra) as they clamp down on traditional male pursuits such as downing 30 bourbon shooters and playing bull rush in the bar until someone dies. Well, accidents happen. Females being more risk-averse than males and seemingly wanting everyone to tow their line and conform to their rules in an effort to make sure everyone lives to 100 is becoming very grating. With allies such as the old-guard Christians such as Anderton (who wants to raise the drinking age back up to 20) and the anti-youth reactionary politicians such as Clayton Cosgrove we have a nasty non-alcoholic fruit cocktail of repression stirring... again... if indeed it ever stopped stirring.

On a recent visit to the countryside on a long awaited port run I was informed by the staff at the vineyard that they had stopped making their port because of the increased tax. "Great, another weekend ruined by Jim Anderton!" I noted to sympathetic acknowledgement. That bastard put the tax on port to punish the youth for drinking 15-25% spirit-esque beverages it should be recalled which included all the fortified wines. These are times of petty, regressive control-freaks.

Banning parents from physically discipling their children?... what's next? What other insidious private members' bills lurk within the Labour caucus? They've got another three years to foist them upon us carte blanche.