Nanny state taking the piste

It’s not often I get batey with the man, but the news that Whitehall is seeking one more area of control vexes me.

I’m talking of course of the looming “something must be done” about crazed, alcohol-riddled bodies piling up around the Alps. Which is of course bollocks.

The British Foreign Office is warning that booze and altitude are a bad combo – no shit Sherlock, but these are adults on a holiday – it seems as if the Brits are truly the last people to see skiing as a holiday, the fun of the 80s is gone, according to local hoteliers. So not content with doing a bang up job making sure UK town centers are empty of comatose teenagers, lying on a bed of Bacardi Breezer bottles, the same government wants to be gooseberry when we travel.

A wise man once said “take the log out of your own eye, before dealing with the splinter in your brothers.” If idiots want to get pissed up, good luck to them, if they are adults, what holiday makers do abroad, regardless of how it might sully the reputation of that sceptred isle, is a foreign affair, if they’re dicks the local law will deal with them I’m sure.

The sad death bandied about to illustrate the dangers of booze and cold is that of a 20 year old Brit in Val D’Isere, who, if you look into the background, was not drunk, but got lost and slipped down an embankment into the river Isere after leaving a pub in the dark.

This will be used as the thin end of the wedge to control personal behavior on holiday, but surely the monies spent on this campaign might be better spent on say proper night lighting and railings along the river, at what is described as a known danger area?

When the British government chooses to extend it’s power abroad to places like Afghanistan and Iraq – where we’re nearly up to 2 million civilian deaths and counting (and based on a lie btw) – maybe it might consider this has more of an impact on its reputation, rather than a few pissed holiday makers in the Alps.

Can I add an amen?