Ken Clarke and drink

so,  that  vapid, milk-faced,  blank-sheet, clueless bunch of Tory toffs has had to go back to the past and resurrect the old war-horse Ken, a man long past his sell-by date and by now surely pickled and smoked beyond anything palatable. Still, he might manage to infuse the Tories with a bit of oxygenated blood. And give us all a good laugh.

The other matter which tickled me is the perennial obsession with drink, or rather drinking to excess. So, now we have it straight from the horse's mouth,: drinking anything at all below the age of 15 causes brain damage. Aaaaah, my brain hurts.  In common with many children brought up in Europe (that bit cut off by the Channel), from an early age my parents encouraged me to sit at the dinner table at home with them and  accompany them to restaurants and cafes where drink was served with the meal. Occasionally, they would offer me some wine, usually watered down, always in my own glass, or a sip of beer. Beer was not a favourite of mine then, I found it too bitter. Most of the time I preferred to drink juice or water, even in my mid to late teenage years. Alcoholic drink was always available at home, although it played no great role in my parents' life.  

Since then, I have only ever been drunk once; I felt so ill, I have never repeated the offence. 

I brought up my children to feel equally free to taste alcohol or not and they too have never drunk to excess. In fact, one of them now doesn't drink at all.

I am not posting these remarks to prove anything, one example proves nothing. All the same, something needs to be done. workable solutions have to be found. These children littering the streets and bus shelters, waving beer cans around, effing and blinding at passers-by, uncaring of themselves, their future, their environment, are everybody's business and more than a set of guidelines is needed to save them.