Mummylonglegs' twat.

Just to be absolutely crystal clear on this I want to stress that I am not referring to the twat she came with* and of which I have no knowledge at all - for all I know there isn't one and Mummylonglegs is really a 27 year old bloke blogging in his underpants. No, I'm referring to a more recent acquisition as a result of this.

Survey shows 3.4 million children live with binge drinking parents.

I’m sorry but this is just getting stupid now, and I’m going to have to get all nit picky about this figure.

First of all this survey, done by The National Addiction Centre (fake charity alert) wasn’t a survey at all. They rounded up 5 reports and lumped all the figures together. Here is what they came up with.

The study, funded by Action on Addiction and the Wates Foundation, focused on all the information collected about parenting and substance use in a number of previous surveys.

They estimate that around 3.4 million children share a home with at least one ‘binge drinking’ parent.

The report also found that 2.6 million children lived with a hazardous drinker, defined as being dependent on drink.

The National Addiction Centre also found that one million are living with at least one parent who abuses drugs.

There is no breakdown of these figures (i.e which households fall into all three catergories) and it is quite frankly, a crock of shit. They don’t state where the reports came from, how old they are etc.

To which Mummy's new friend replied:

...calling an addiction centre a “fake charity”, demonstrates a degree of social ignorance on your part. As most people know, most healthcare centres are government funded and at least in part, they rely on researcher’s donating their thesis/research time as unpaid contributor’s in building community programs to help people.

Well, I notice first of all that the good doctor takes no issue with Mummy's view of the reports. Now it is The Mainly Fail we're talking about here and I'd be inclined to check if they told me my arse has two cheeks, so I'm saying nothing one way or the other about the reporting or Mummy's reading of it or how close that may or may not be to the facts. However, I don't think I need to because Dr Williams isn't going there either. Instead he's gone for the fake charity bit. Now, checking the Charity Commission website I see that he is literally correct in that the National Addiction Centre is not a charity but apparently part of the Home Orifice. I'm not sure of the wisdom of a title that seems to imply that the Home Office is the at centre of the nation's addictions, but possibly there may be some truth in that. Anyway, although the NAC is not a charity I suspect Mummy's point is that it is publicly funded and regardless of what they think of its aims or findings UK citizens and residents are forced to pay for it at the point of a metaphorical gun. Protest with sufficient vigour and ultimately they'll come back with a real one. Your sneer about social ignorance is misplaced if Mummy is in fact aware of the taxpayer funded (or government funded if you prefer, but since almost all the money they have is taken from the taxpayers it amounts to the same thing) nature and simply objects.

Moving on, the doctor also says:

At no point did the research endorse or promote a “Puritan path”, as you say. The researchers point was, very simply, that when on multiple nights throughout any given week, 6 glasses of wine for a tending mother or 8 beers/shots for a father, is probably not the best example to set for kids, or keeping their safety in mind, should a parent need to be a parent and deal with circumstances that would require them to be on the ball.

To which I would say 'bollocks'.

Firstly, the 'Puritan Path' bit seems hyperbolical, as you often get with blogging. It happens, okay. Deal with it. Plenty of respected professional journos indulge in it for comment pieces.

Secondly, if the researchers' point is that having that much alcohol sets a bad example are they not promoting or endorsing a suggestion that lower is a better example to set? And shouldn't there be something... oh, I don't know, like evidence that it leads to the kids having their own problems later on - preferably with a causal link rather than just a correlation. Personally I feel it's as likely to cause them to be moderate drinkers in their own adulthood, but then I've done no research - I've just hung around with lots of light drinking folk whose parents spent most of the 1970s off their dials.

Thirdly, what the hell's it got to do with anyone else anyway? If you've got evidence that this or that child is in danger then intervene, though since the track record on that in the UK includes some truly epic fails.... no, let's not go there. Yes, I think we can all accept that there will be pissheads who are bad parents as a result, though I suspect that a good proportion of them are not bad parents because they're pissheads but pissheads because they're bad parents. However, screaming that millions this just tars a huge swath of the population with the same brush - potentially abusive and/or neglectful parent. Dr Manning's own words (my emphasis):

'Whilst actual harm from parental substance misuse is not inevitable, only large scale and far-reaching initiatives will likely impact on the 3.4 million children living with binge drinkers and almost one million living with drug users, where the potential for harm exists.'

Note, as Mummylonglegs pointed out, how many of the second group are already counted in the first group is not even discussed. Instead we're left with the impression than close to 4.5 million children are, well, if not at risk then living where 'the potential for harm exists'. Bear in mind that there are about 13 million dependant children in the UK, and even the lower figure represents about a quarter of all British children. A quarter. 25%. That sounds a hell of a lot and I wonder if it's been sanity tested.

Last, and this is an issue I have every time I hear that X amount of whatever should not be exceeded, are they saying that 5 wines for mum or 7 beers for dad is acceptable? Are they making allowance for tiny tiny mum who gets shitfaced on a glass and a half, or andro-mum who might be able to drink me under the table? Or, to be all PC and gender sensitive about it, dad who never could hold his ale, or some monster who looks like a building in socks and doesn't even feel anything until the fourth drink? Let's assume they are. So what are the numbers referring to? Maximum? That would seem a little irresponsible given that there will be a proportion of two pot screamers. Mean? Median? Whatever it is I can guarantee you two things - for some it's too low and for some it's too high. Given the numbers there are probably, though not definitely, some for whom it's a magical Goldilocks number, but they'll be vastly outnumbered by those for whom it is - how can I put this? - wrong.

Dr Williams ends with this comment:

I need not point out the fact that your spelling, language and lack of articulation above, discredits the worth of your commentary on matters more complex than watching ‘Coronation Street’, but I will. Just for a giggle. If you want people to take you seriously as someone who is able to read the news and factual research with an analytical mind, then you must first try to grasp not sounding like a redneck who lives in a car park.

So her spelling and grammar isn't 100%. And? Neither was yours, but it didn't invalidate what you had to say. It had no relevance at all in fact, and the same goes for Mummylonglegs. Maybe Mummy is just a pour thai pissed and never turned on her spell chequer. Maybe she really is a 27 year old bloke with 170 IQ and a postgrad (and blogging in his underpants), and also dyslexia. Maybe, the blogosphere not being an English class, it doesn't actually matter that much. Look, if she ever asks me how to spell anaesthesia or when to use a reflexive pronoun I'll tell her, but if she never does I couldn't give a rat's ringpiece. I will tell her if I think she's incorrect on something but not if she's spelt it with only one 'r'. If imperfect English is still a problem for you then take 20p and call someone who gives a fuck.

So she swears like a trooper. And? It's a blogging style for some, especially when part of the purpose of the blog is to vent steam in a way which mightn't be appropriate in daily life. In reality I'm much less potty mouthed, less angry and don't really consider myself an exile, but being as this is the bastarding shit-munching, cock-biting, cuntwafting, ape-raping, fucking blogosphere I'm going to be say what I can't normally. While you're getting over yourself you might want to get over that at the same time.

With your additional absence of wit to prop up your conclusion-jumping and lack of comprehension in grasping an articles meaning, then you will continue to render your commentary as pointless. Well, that, and sound like a complete twat.

Would that be jumping to conclusions like someone being unable to comment on anything other than a popular soap about working class Northern folk, or that their home is a bivouac under a pay-and-display machine? Just asking. Oh, and just between us I think I should mention that 'articles' is possessive there, not plural. I suggest you take the apostrophe from 'contributor's' and stick it in your 'ar...ticles'. Aside from that I suggest you play the ball instead of the man (or woman in this case**). Whether Mummylonglegs or anyone else is right or wrong doesn't depend on their written English or their use of invective. With your persistent reliance on ad hominem attacks to prop up your conclusions you will continue to render your fisking irrelevant shite that misses the point.

Oh, and a declaration of interest for you, Doc: I don't drink and have never watched Coronation Street.

* Ooooooh, Matron!

** Unless Mummylonglegs really is a male postgrad with 170 IQ blogging in his underpants, natch.