Some good news for drinkers at last

A new report suggests that people who drink alcohol over the recommended 'safe' limit can lose up to five years off their lives. So instead of popping your clogs at 92 you may go at 87 - or of course not, depending on your genes. This has to be good news, given how much it will save the NHS. For one who watched the final three to five years of both my parents spent in conditions they never wished for, frankly I'll drink a toast to the idea that one could curtail the risk of that eventuality. Not least in a country where politicians are afraid of upsetting the established church with the idea that one should be able to chose a dignified death of one's own timing (interestingly of course the Bible doesn't condemn suicide, but does seem to approve of the idea of turning water into wine). And what other reasons could you imagine may warrant a few pints?

As the Daily Mail so succinctly put it this morning MISSILES AT THE READY. The drumbeat of war never seems to leave us for long, and it seems that our Prime Minister is merely waiting for her orders from Washington before displaying her decisiveness in bombing Syria. Chemical weapons are abhorrent - but so is getting blasted to bits. Theresa doesn't seem all that disturbed about what the weapons we sell to the Saudis are doing to children in Yemen. And given how Putin is portrayed in the West, why would Trump et al wish to test him? Conflict is a risk multiplier - war rarely goes to plan - and the enormity of the risks in this case mean that a simple resort to bombing is not the solution. So, today being a Friday, and the 13th to boot, I'll be off down to the pub.