Monday 24 August 2009

Government to ban pint glasses

Photobucket

What a bunch of patronising cunts.

Plans to replace the traditional pint glass with one made of unbreakable plastic will not be accepted by drinkers, the pub industry has warned.

Damn right, who the fuck wants to pay the massively inflated costs of a pint these days, only to have it served in a piece of plastic. Let’s hear the excuse for this latest volley against freedom.

The Home Office has commissioned a new design, in an attempt to stop glasses being used as weapons.

Official figures show 5,500 people are attacked with glasses and bottles every year in England and Wales.

I'm sure I don't have to point out the absurdly low number of attacks this constitutes in the scheme of the number of pubs and revellers. More people die needlessly under the care of the NHS each year. There are over 7000 pubs in London alone. According to the same article;

126 million pints per week are served in the UK. Now that sounds high to me, but anyway.

126 million * 52 weeks = over 6 billion 500 million pints per year.

5,500 people are attacked each year with the evil pint glass. This amounts to a less than 0.00009 percent attack rate. This figure is so low I’ve convinced myself that I calculated the percentage wrong. Another way of looking at this is the average pub goer will have a 1 in 1,181,818 chance of this happening to them.

There is no logical reason for this whatsoever. What’s next, banning metal knives and forks?

Neil Williams from the association said he was concerned that drinkers would notice a drop in quality:

"For the drinker, the pint glass feels better, it has a nice weight and the drink coats the glass nicely. That's why people go out for a drink, to have a nice experience".

Something this fucking piss poor excuse for a government is doing its best to destroy using its favourite weapon; bureaucracy.

Mr Williams said the industry feared extra costs at a time when many pubs were struggling in the recession: "It would impose another cost on us. Red tape is already coming from all sides."

More costs, more regulations, more excuses for the government to watch and control private enterprise. Still, the Ministry of Freedom Home Office is adamant that us peasants accept the new programming. What to do?

Nick Verebelyi, the designer in charge of delivering the new pint, said they were looking at two approaches.

"One is to coat the glass with a substance that will make sure the glass doesn't shatter into pieces when it is broken - that could be a plastic material for example.

Whatever, I want my pint in a glass, not in some oestrogen leaking plastic container. By the way, do you know how easy it is to break a plastic pint, er cup? And what of the possibility of people using pint containers even more because ‘it’s just plastic’. I’ll lob this pint because it’s only plastic what’s the worst that can happen? Another big fucking waste of public funds.

Mr Verebelyi said he accepted that drinkers are attached to the traditional glass pint: "You make a change and there is often opposition, we've got to make it appealing to them.

"We've got to make it desirable and acceptable and cool.

"There's going to be quite a push behind this in terms of the Home Office."

Translation: We need to re-engineer people to think they way we want them to.

The Home Office Minister, Alan Campbell, said the redesign could make a significant difference to the number of revellers who are injured.

He said: "Innovative design has played an important role in driving down overall crime, including theft, fraud and burglary.

"This project will see those same skills applied to the dangerous and costly issue of alcohol-related crime and I am confident that it will lead to similar successes."

Bullshit. Note in the last sentence he says this should reduce alcohol related crime. But I thought this was about pint glasses in the face? Alcohol-related could mean any-fucking-thing, especially when the state has an agenda.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You seem quite angry, I understand you don't want to drink out of plastic cups, I don't, nobody does but I don't think that is the planned intention. Although the numbers and odds are quite low, the few who do get hurt, get hurt badly. If something can be done to reduce this percentage to zero then it can only be a good thing.

I don't think there's ever been a plan to outlaw traditional pint glasses and replace them for flimsy plastic ones. Companies have created traditional shaped pint glasses with an internal laminated plastic layer, a bit like a car windscreen. Still glass on the inside and outside, identical looks, identical feel, identical weight. The only difference is that it doesn't disfigure someone when it gets smashed round their face, an action that is practically always caused by the contents of the pint glass in the first place.

Also, being the 21st century, with modern mass production techniques this will add pennies, at most to the cost of each pint glass. Considering most of the "6 billion 500 million" pints sold each year are by the huge breweries, it won't affect the cost of your pint because the glasses are more durable and will have a longer life.

ketz said...

I'm one of people who is against on this. Why would this happen? They just like telling us that we need to drink water in a plastic cup. What will happen with my pint glass collection?

Personalized Pint Glasses

Blog Archive