Cut And Dried Tyranny

You might think that offering regular customers a complementary glass of mulled wine is a fantastic marketing ploy for a hairdressers. You might think that it would spread a little goodwill and Christmas cheer. You might think that it's a completely harmless thing to do. And you might think that no one, but no one, could possibly object to it.

You'd be absolutely right on the first three counts. And spectacularly wrong on the fourth.

Norwich City Council (bastards) have written to every one of the city's 104 salons saying that to serve mulled wine you've got to have a licence. Failure to comply with this bureaucratic nonsense could land the salon owner with (get this):
..six months in prison (yes, I really did say "six months in prison"); .. ..
..a £20,000 fine,
..or,
..BOTH !

And, what's more, these fascist bullies are threatening to use undercover officers to catch salon owners out.

Students of the incessantly infantile behaviour exhibited by the State should will also appreciate the fact that they've sent this letter out four weeks before Christmas - doubtless too late for anyone to apply for a sodding licence.

Words are beginning to fail me when I attempt to describe how much I now hate the people in authority in this country. There is absolutely no harm whatsoever in giving customers a tipple when they come in out of the cold to get their hair done. God knows things are depressing enough as it is in this country right now. Why is it that all the people who have no life have to take it out on the rest of us by poking their noses into everybody else's ?

There is another point to be made here, which is that this is just the latest in a long line of crackdowns on the use of alcohol. Having used every tactic under the sun to target smokers, the State is now clearly setting its sight on anyone who likes a drink once in a while.

I guess the logic is that they tried combining economic ruin and Prohibition in the America of the 1920s, so they might us well try it here now.