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

Now there's something that, multitalented as I am, I can't manage.

Well maybe you could suffocate someone else instead?

I'm not going to get involved in this conversation. It's becoming too surreal even for me

contortionists.

Milla

As someone who has seen Mikey trot up the stairs before () I can confirm that her talent for suffocation by boobies is...unbested by anyone

Hello Bouncy! Where did you pop up from? I thought you might have dropped me into the wastepaper bin or something long ago!

Today at work I got told that I look about 15 and not old enough to drink alcohol let alone sell it What do....well I guess Mikey and Joe C, think of this?

Oh I've been reading your journal. How creepy does that sound, eh? Just lurking, dear...

Meanwhile, on the subject of looking young, I got ID'd for the first time since I moved to Bristol (September 2004) a few days ago and had to walk all the way home by myself to get my passport . Its a good thing I live just across the road from the pub really.

I was travelling with my fifteen-year-old friend and his eighteen-year-old sister (and a bunch of other kids from school). At the airport here they make anyone over 16 show their passports, and my friend was very proud that they had asked for his passport but not his sister's. They didn't ask for mine, though. I'm fifteen, but people tend to say I look either 16 or 13.

... I think I have told this before, but it made me laugh out loud at the time...

Last year I got asked for ID at a hotel bar, while at a conference. I think the legal age is 21, but it might be 18. (California).








I was 36 at the time.





And I don't look a day under 35...


Milla

Go you Milla! That's better than when my mam got offered junior membership to the National Trust at the age of 31.

I have had several moments like that Bouncy and haven't been up to the dash to get my passport, sometimes across the country...It's stupid though, because the only things some places take are a passport or driving license. Now I don't drive and I don't REALLY want to take my passport out to some all-night pub trot (in my case).

Today is the midway to going back to school and I'm absolutely terrified. However I'm a big brave girl now

Now however, I'm going....shopping! For birthday presents and a new bra. Joy!

"Today at work I got told that I look about 15."

Didn't I tell you last year that you looked 14?

No, the legal age in California (and across the whole US) is 21.

Which is really quite stupid when you think about it, because if you don't go to university you leave school at 18 - but you can't drink for another 3 years! And it's not as if university students don't drink anyway.

Actually, not entirely stupid -- the change was made relatively recently in US history because there was good evidence that doing so would save hundreds of thousands of lives. And it worked -- largely because while those 18-20 still drink, they are *far, far* less likely to drink and drive than they were when the age limit was 18. Since the age limit was changed in different states at different times, it was pretty easy to make a solid connection between the changes and sharply reduced deaths.

Myself, I'd prefer not to have an alcohol age limit at all -- but if there is going to be one, I've seen enough hard evidence to convince me that 21 is better for the US than 18 was.

I certainly acknowledge that raising the drinking age has lowered death rate. Of course, reinstituting Prohibition would probably lower it some more. But it just seems silly and illogical to say that someone is a legal adult, with all the rights and privileges therein, but they can't consume alcohol.

Nooooooo!!!! I reckon prohibition NOW would actually raise the death rate back up again because you'd have more illegal drinking now than there even was back in prohibition days! I'm not entirely sure WHY I think that...I just have this very certain feeling about it. It's like make something unobtainable and more people will do it behind your back...you know?

Well I think you'd have less drinking, but maybe more bingeing? Also, I'd be forced to set up a commercial distillery in my bedroom, which would almost certainly lead to a few deaths.

<>

Which is why the drinking age should be lowered. And cannabis should be legalised, and all that sort of thing. I think a lot of teenagers drink because the fact that they're doing something forbidden gives them a thrill. If they were brought up with the idea that they could drink whenever they wanted and it was no big deal, then there would be less incidences of binge drinking and drinking to the point of alcohol poisoning. It would be more of a normal thing, and not a question of 'I can't wait till I'm 21 so I can drink all the time!'

Which is exactly why lowering the drinking age wouldn't help any -- you'd have the exact same problem, but at a younger age -- still binging, but at an age at which alcohol tolerance is tends to be less, and decision making skills less than fully developed.

I'd be up for abolishing the drinking age altogether -- but I wouldn't be for just lowering the age.

Which is why making the age of consent 12 in the Netherlands is a good idea? At the age of 12 most kids aren't really considering sex but at least they know about it and have access to stuff and everything so when they DO suddenly go "ooh i want to leap in bed with this person" then they don't have the whole secret thing going on?

Well, I only say 18 because that's when everything else happens: you can drive without any restrictions, you can vote, you're a legal adult in all respects - but you still can't drink because you can't do that until you're 21. I just think that's silly.