Dry January

Good luck to you if you felt compelled not to drink alcohol throughout January - you almost got there.

I have felt no such compulsion. I  simply do not drink too much alcohol and I never intend to do so. I do not take too much notice of government recommendations of what to eat and drink and how much. I know in my own mind that I rarely over indulge and that my drinking is not damaging my health.

The same can be said for my wife. It is clear that certain medical academicians are trying to get the population not to drink alcohol at all. They are constantly bringing the recommendations for how many units we should drink per week down. They are now getting round to suggesting that drinking more than 14 units a week makes you an abuser of alcohol. Such absolutism is tosh. Anyone who is an alcoholic or who has liver disease should not be drinking at all. If I drink 15 units a week it neither makes me an alcoholic nor an abuser of alcohol. I shall decide for myself based on my own health not on the idea of someone who has not even met me.

I drink wine with food and if I am deprived of a few glasses of Bordeaux or Burgundy, or any other good wine, then the quality of my life goes down. The conviviality of sharing a glass or two of wine with my wife and my friends helps to make life worth living for me. Health-puritan bores do not bother me.