h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Teenage Drinking - A46654455
Author: minichessemouse - Entry of the Month author - A42694806 - U8131912

This weeks contribution for The Stretcher A46143948

Sorry if it seems a bit rushed.

mini

Woo hoo! You work well under pressure matey! I wondered whether anyone would take this on after hearing about this morning.

Top little Entry, you've made it informative, succinct and accessible.

Just watch some of your spelling (try and fix it up before Ms GB gets in here! )

Childeren = children

affect = effect (I think)

Just have a quick read through and look out for some punctuation errors too, there's a fullstop or two astray (in the last paragraph).

Nice one

Ms GB

()

Oh, and alcahal = alcohol

If you've time, but it's not essential (or if you don't feel confident enough too) you could try putting in some links to h2g2 Entries, and even the BBC News website you've quoted some of the information from

H2G2 Researcher = h2g2 Researcher

Just a style thing. For future reference

And before the nitpickers come in and try and make you feel bad

oops, in my rush to get it into peer review i forgot to stick it through a spellcheck, hmm, wonder how much gideML will confuse Applewaorks. . . .

you mean i remembered to put punctuation in !

mini

What Matt said!

Something that's often mentioned when people look at the 'continental' model of children drinking weak wine with meals etc. is the cultural difference between Britain and Europe when it comes to drinking alcohol. The perception (in Britain, anyway) seems to be that Europeans drink alcohol to enjoy it, while the British drink alcohol to get drunk.

It may also be worth mentioning that calmly educating children about alcohol with a glass of wine at dinner is probably only going to work for (nice, middle-class ) families where the adults aren't themselves in the habit of binge-drinking themselves into a stupor at every possible opportunity. Sadly, children tend to learn from their parents...

Anyway, having been teetotal for nearly 18 years, I'm perhaps not the best person to be making informed judgements here

I can certainly look for Hootoo likns, but am not sure how to link to the BBS news website.

I have put it through a spellcheck, but if there are any other spelling errors in there please let me know, likewise with grammatical errors.

I will come back and fix things more after i have had a big cup of

mini

On re-read, what Danny said (except the bit about being teetotal).

We have a six year old in our house, and I don't mind a glass of wine every now and then, or more often a pint. We haven't been shy about offering her a smell and a taste of the stuff. She turns her nose up, at present, because she thinks it smells bad - but she knows that it's something you can enjoy every now and then.

Anyway, I'm glad you got there in the end mini

You can link to the BBC website by adding text to be linked

If that makes any sense

binge drinking

GB

mini -

You know how to link to h2g2 Entries, yeah?

Like this: A relevant word

Well, linking to outside websites is much the same:

relevant word

You simply insert HREF instead of H2G2, and pop in a TITLE tag. Hope that makes it simple for you.

um, what they said

We're falling over ourselves in helping you out...

I'll leave you be

Glad to still have you in the race

Thankyou all, BBC news links now in place, i will search for Hootoo links whaen i get back from my lecture.

mini

Well done for covering this topical issue in time to meet the Stretcher deadline!

I'm sure you could have added to this if you had had time. Other factors in binge drinking in Britain might include: advertising and drink promotions, a difference in culture between Britain and continental Europe, a breakdown in family life etc.

A couple of grammatical points:
"Some believe that the increase in binge drinking is..."

"Public attitudes to this government advice have..."

"Here is what some members of the general public.."

Good work getting this written so quickly

"binge drinking is becoming a major problem in towns and cities across the UK."

The press often tell us that binge drinking is a problem, but what's the scale? You might quote some figures as to the number of people exceeding the recommended daily limits etc.

Alex

Also, keep in mind, (I think this is true), as far as I'm aware, an increase in numbers exceeding government 'recommended limits' arn't necessarily that* useful, as they keep lowering the 'units' of alcohol deemed 'safe', as a dairly/weekly limit.

Also, on the matter of binge drinking being a problem now*, tends to indicate it necer was a problem before, that it never happened before, and I think to some extent, as with knife chrime, its partly down at leat to the medias seeming interest* in the issue leadin gto more reporting of it, making it look like its suddenly* a huge issue whereas it never was before.... Which is strange as I'm pretty* sure* I remember being out with mates drinking in pubs, on street corners, etc., back when I was 14 and 15, which is now..... oo eck about fifteen or more years ago And it certainly wasn't uncommon then.... as to if its more* common now... dunno.... But somehow I don't think so, .... building up a good tollerance to alcohol from a young age seemes to work for me But then, even in my bunch of drgged up alco-bingeing freinds from back in school days, I can't think of more than one or two others who could knock back a botlte of vodka as quick as me and still be 'sobre' eenough to convince a bouncer that we were old enuf to get into a club

Think there may still be a few spelling errors..... :=- what I useually find easiest once an entry is in Guide ML, is rather than running the whole thing, including the HTML/Guide ML tage through my spell check, I just copy and paste over the 'text' from teh entry into a spell checker document, and then keep the window open on H2G2, to hand corect in the actual guide entry the spelling errors it highlights over in the text only word processer version ... if that makes sense

Nice and succinct.

Did you mean sounbd-bytes or sound-bites?

Whoever in this thread said that about middle-class families being the ones with sensible attitudes toward alcohol...

Gae an' abide i' the corner, shame on you.

Here's a link for you mini

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/7853882.stm

GB

Yeh.... I'm a bleeding home owner now and everything.... I even listen to radio four and* the Archurs, you can't get more middle class than that, and yet I abuse alcohol in a what I hope is fairly earnest really going for it kinda way....

ahh, I do own a flat cap though....

Good entry, mini.

I'm not sure about drinking habits in Scandinavia or in the Netherlands, for instance, but here in Germany, you don't give your children any alcohol to drink - not even watered down. The only occasions they are allowed to take a sip of wine, or bubbly, is at feasts.
But then maybe we're having the same problems here with binge-drinking that you have. You're only allowed to buy alcohol from the age of 16, but that's limited to beverages with a low %vol. 'Hard' drinks can only be bought from age 18 on. The same goes for cigarettes, btw.