Oldies

Here we go again. Health n' Safety. When you are getting on in years you not only have to put up with care-home inattention and care-hospital ill treatment and not being able to touch your toes, you also have to put up with people telling you how you should be living. The latest comes from some Pshychiatric Committee (?) who have declared that all people over 65 should be MOT'd - well, sort of. They should be "screened" to see how much alcohol they drink. Where are we? Mecca? These Pschyatric loonies believe that old people should enjoy only about a half a glass of wine per day or half a pint of beer (I don't think they used "enjoy"; they probably meant "force-fed"). It's enough to drive you to drink.
You live to 65 and then retire to enjoy life without the discipline of the boss looking over your shoulder and telling you off. You're free at last. Why not celebrate by having a couple of pints or, in my case, a couple of (large) glasses of red wine? But looking over your shoulder now is that haggard witch "Elf n' Safety".
I recall, many moons ago, Cliff Mitchelmore interviewing an "expert" on health matters; it was a programme called Tonight if my memory is correct (it often isn't these days what with all the health and safety junk I read about food, drink, excercise, eyes, cancer, heart etc). They were talking about potatoes and the expert said "O, potatoes, shouldn't eat them, very bad for you with all that starch". Then Mitchelmore said "What about the well-known 'chip buttie'?" To which the expert replied: "Certain death".
A couple of years passed and the humble potatoe became something that was good for you. Didn't some wiseacre in government advise us all to eat five potatoes a day?
Health advice comes at you like a sine curve: one day its up and the next day it's down. Potatoes kill you then potatoes save your life.
So two fingers to Health and Safety and pass the bottle please. I've always thought pschiatrists were crazy - now I'm sure of it.