Tag: alcohol

Drink more alcohol to save the environment!

While browsing through the news articles from a few days ago, I noticed two separate items from Cyprus Mail newspaper.  These articles weren’t linked or related in any way, but in my news reader they came up right next to each other, and I think the connection is obvious.

The first article was about Cypriots drinking less alcohol than their European Union peers:

CYPRUS has among the lowest consumption of alcohol per capita in the EU but when it comes to those who do like a tipple, binge drinking is quite prevalent.

According to a report released yesterday on alcohol in the EU, compiled by the World Health Organsiation (WHO), Cypriot alcohol consumption stands at 9.3 litres per capita compared to the EU average of 12.4. Malta came in at the lowest with 8.1 litres per capita, Greece with 10.5 and the UK with 12.5.

The second article was about Cypriots producing more junk than anyone else in Europe.

CYPRUS has again topped the list in Europe as generators of the most household waste with 760kg per person on average.

In the EU27, 502 kg of municipal waste was generated per person in 2010, while 486 kg of municipal waste was treated per person. This municipal waste was treated in different ways3: 38 per cent was landfilled, 22 per cent incinerated, 25 per cent recycled and 15 per cent composted.

The amount of municipal waste generated varies significantly across member states. Cyprus, with 760 kg per person, had the highest amount of waste generated in 2010, followed by Luxembourg, Denmark and Ireland with values between 600kg and 700 kg per person, and the Netherlands, Malta, Austria, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, the United Kingdom and Portugal with values between 500kg and 600kg.

Finland, Belgium, Sweden, Greece, Slovenia, Hungary and Bulgaria had values between 400kg and 500kg, while values of below 400kg per person were recorded in Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia and Latvia.

There!  I think there is enough data to support the theory of solving the environmental crisis with alcohol consumption.  Now all I need is a government grant to do some extensive drinking research.

78 pints of Guiness

This blog (in Greek) shares a receipt from some Irish pub, where people had quite a party.  The total amount is in Norwegian krone (NOK), which translates to about 2,555 EUR.  But it’s not the total amount that is interesting here.  Rather the list of drinks.  In particular – 78 pints of Guiness.

What does that remind me of?  The 99 bottles of beer song.

The origin of toasts

Yesterday I heard the story of toasting origins.  It sounded interesting, but somewhat unrealistic.  It turned out to be true:

The practice of toasting originated in Ancient Greece, at a time when fear of poisoning was a significant concern. To put guests at ease, the host would pour the guests’ wine from a common decanter, take the first drink to demonstrate its safety, then raise his cup to the guests and invite them to drink in good health.

Racism is like alcoholism

I’ve been thinking a lot about racism recently. Again.

One of the interesting thoughts that went through my head was that racism is a lot like alcoholism. It is a desease that needs to be cured. There are many stages, like in alcoholism – from very passive to very violent. And curing racism should probably start from the same point as curing alcoholism – realization of the problem. Like an alcholic should say to himself that he is an alcoholic, a racist should say to himself that he is a racist.

That last thing is, of course, a hard one to do.

There are just so many excuses for both racism and alcoholism, and there is so little information about both of those problems. Most people would agree that both alcoholism and racism are bad things. Realizing though that you are a racist or an alcoholic is difficult, because you try to be good so hard. You need extra proof. You have to be convinced that there is something bad about you. And all the information out there is so general and so remote. It’s not about yourself. It’s about those bad guys. You don’t go around drunk breaking things or killing black people. You are not an alcoholic. You are not a racist. No way.

There do exist many organizations that help alcoholics, Alcoholics Anonymous being the most famous one. There are clinics. There are doctors. There are pills. There are chapters in psychology books.

But I haven’t heard of Racist Anonymous. Yet.