You would be forgiven for thinking Harrogate, Yorks. is just a sleepy old spa town, the faded elegance of its architecture and inhabitants slipping softly towards decay while the ghosts of Thora Hird and Alan Bennet’s dear old Mum sip ghostly tea in the ghost corner of Betty’s Tea Rooms and wait for young Alan to arrive (many years to go yet we hope Alan) That after all is the image presented by various novelists and certain television dramas written by Alan Bennet.
But if you have formed that impression, you would be wrong. The peace of Harrogate has been destroyed by posses of pissed pensioners.

The latest government healthcare healthscare dreamed up by Super Nanny suggests the people of Harrogate are hazardous drinkers. Not heavy or habitual drinkers but hazardous. Hazardous drinking is not like binge drinking (they’re not animals in Harrogate for God’s sake,) it is the quiet enjoyment of a glass or two of wine with one’s dinner or a small whiskey while watching Shameless. Apparently this very sensible pattern of drinking puts one “at risk.”

At risk of what? Getting a life, almost having some fun. Of having a third glass and then a fourth? Aiding and abetting the Euro Rats of Brussels in their conspiracies against British sovereignty?

If Hazardous Drinking in Harrogate merits an intervention by Super Nanny what will she get onto next? Depravity in Devonshire, Group Sex in Guildford?

Update 28 April 2009
Pissed Pensioners Are A Social Blight