Nobody is listening to booze warnings, says VIRGINIA BLACKBURN

Now the bad: this only applies if you’re a woman aged over 65. Also on the downside is that if you want to have a baby not only should you not drink during pregnancy but you should stay away from the hard stuff for a good three months before conception. And in other developments apparently “drinkorexia” is on the rise. This is because bottles of booze are now apparently given a calorie count and some people are avoiding food so they can have a drink and remain slim instead.

Rarely can any country ever have had as mixed-up an attitude to alcohol as this one but what lies behind all of the above is scare mongering. For decades now , ever since health experts plucked some totally arbitrary amounts out of the ether and told us this should be our weekly unit count, these people have lost all credibility because we know that they are not telling us the truth.

I’m certainly not advocating drinking during pregnancy but the fact of the matter is that many of our parents did and they produced the healthiest generation that has ever lived. As for not drinking before conceiving, just how do they think a good many of those babies came about in the fi rst place?

The problem with all of this is that there’s an agenda behind it. Some people think that alcohol is as much a moral evil as it is a physical one and try to discourage it at all costs, as with these absolutely nonsensical warnings that middle-class adults who enjoy wine in the evenings are the real al kies in our midst. That is why we have a real problem with drink-related issues in parts of the country: because we all know we are being fed such lies that no one pays any attention to warnings any more.

This is what happens when you cry wolf once too often. They should pipe down.

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ENCOUNTERING a problem with a fi nancial transaction recently, I asked my bank if I could forward an email for them to look at to be told they “don’t have the facility” to receive emails. What, exactly, do we pay these people for?

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Jennifer wrong to moan about Friends

JENNIFER ANISTON has been whining that everyone still associates her with the character of Rachel in Friends. She’s absolutely right and people will almost certainly continue to do so but has she any idea at all how lucky she’s been? Most actors and actresses would give their eye teeth for the fame, success and wealth that came on the back of that casting and the sensible ones who actually achieve it should give thanks every day for their good fortune.

I once interviewed the inestimable Ted Danson who totally accepted the fact that to many of us he will always be the barman Sam in Cheers and he’s not the only one. Would Jennifer rather she had not played Rachel? She should wise up, and fast.

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THE luminous Uma Thurman has clearly had some work done although it doesn’t look as if she’s gone the full Renée Zellweger, more a case of a little too much fi ller, which should wear off.

But cut the woman some slack. We live in an age that is obsessed with youth and beauty like no other before and had she actually allowed nature to take its course and give her a few wrinkles, she’d have been slated to kingdom come. Leave her alone. I’d have done the same.

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WHO are these people objecting to pensioners being given a bit of help via government bonds to live a comfortable old age? There has been some really vile old-age bashing in the last week, a wicked and reprehensible trend that should stop right now.

As anyone with elderly relations knows, the aged are vulnerable in a way almost incomprehensible to the rest of us and deserve all available help, not vilifi cation. Most of this is coming from the Left, of course. What a surprise.