Alcohol harm reduction in practice...

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Although I'm pretty sure Sir Ian Gilmore and Alcohol Concern wouldn't approve:

An unusual Dutch initiative aims to put an end to one of Amsterdam's worst nuisances -- those bawdy, loitering alcoholics -- by employing them in a kind of street cleaning corps. The problem, though, is that the state-financed Rainbow Foundation behind the project pays the self-professed chronic alcoholics in beer for their labor.

Perhaps, rather than nannying people whole aren't either a problem or harming their health, our public health people should look at schemes such as this - here's why:

I don’t know, but would be willing to bet, that most of these workers were consuming rather more than the equivalent of five cans of beer per day before they started in. The delivery is paced throughout the day so there’s no chance any of them get drunk. By delivering the beer as beer rather than as the cash equivalent encourages pacing things rather than having the workers spend it all on lower cost per unit binge at the end of the day.

It might not work for all these men - some may carry on old habits when not on the programme - but if a few drink less dangerously that's a real health gain. And Amsterdam gets some cleaner parks!

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I don’t know, but would be willing to bet, that most of these workers were consuming rather more than the equivalent of five cans of beer per day before they started in. The delivery is paced throughout the day so there’s no chance any of them get drunk. By delivering the beer as beer rather than as the cash equivalent encourages pacing things rather than having the workers spend it all on lower cost per unit binge at the end of the day. - See more at: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/11/should-you-ever-pay-alcoholics-in-beer.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+marginalrevolution%2Ffeed+%28Marginal+Revolution%29#sthash.atiIcZqu.dpuf

Beards, cats and clever octopusses - thoughts on the World Cup Finals

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The World Cup finals have proven to be everything we might expect – England performing in the manner of a damp squib, the TV pundits frothing about special kinds of football not played by Englishmen (samba, total, passing etc.) and everyone being consistently wrong in their predictions. Apparently, with the exception of an especially clever octopus.

There have been some oddities – an Italian player with a full beard (as opposed to one of those trimmed affairs more usually associated with footballers). Presumably de Rossi is studying at the Martin Castrogiovanni school of beards. This trend of bearded Italians is – while odd – faintly encouraging for those of us who have struggled in the sartorial stakes besides assorted Latin types (although inexplicably, as observed here, Vicente Del Bosque, the Spanish boss wouldn’t look out of place in Last of the Summer Wine).

A further oddity of this World Cup has been the failure of any pundit or commentator to attach the term ‘cat’ to any player (not of course that it ever did Peter Bonetti any good). I was under the impression that some sleek, probably South American player has to be likened to a cat at some point – surely it’s in the rules? Such fickleness really isn’t acceptable (as is the fact that the Argentine team is not referred to as The Pumas – this is also wrong).

All in all, not a bad World Cup – and one in which the teams playing good football in an organized way (or in Spain’s case passing the ball in endless triangles until David Villa wakes up and scores) appear to have risen to the top. For my part I’d like the Dutch to win – they deserve it for playing OK football but mostly for failing to win it when they were the best team on the planet by a mile.

Hup Holland Hup!

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