Bargain Boozing

I'm not an academic expert in the price elasticity of demand for over strength alcohol in those with alcohol related problems. I'm not publishing papers in the Lancet. I do however deal with a large number of people who have problems with alcohol and an even larger number of people who don't. In the course of my work I've encountered some people who's relationship with alcohol has led to their own death or those of others. I've seen folks slowly destroy their physical and mental health with drink. I've commented here before on the minimum alcohol price and my support for a sensible minimum. It's affect on me and my line of work would only be positive. The use of licenced front-line doorstaff is almost exclusively on licensed premises serving non-minimum price drinks to those with or without the money to pay for it.
What concerns me about the recent moves on minimum alcohol unit prices is two fold. The level it is set at is ridiculously low. The inability to retail at below the current taxation level doesn't set a sensible bar to problem drinkers. To be so low on funds, even benefit derived funds, to not be able to pickle yourself daily, is not stopped.
The second worry is that this will be brought in, then over time, once the general public has accepted the idea of a minimum, this minimum being the tax minimum, the tax will rise. The minimum price will go up, the problems with cheap drink will fall, the price will rise again. All the time the tax on all drinks will rise and the many punters, daily, weekly, monthly or occasional, will be paying with every drink. This will hurt hard the vast majority who drink without problem and the minimum unit pricing, will hurt everyone.

The Quiet Time

With the elf filled fun of christmas and the frankly violently drunken new years out of the way we find ourselves in the cold, quiet nights of January. The tightness of wallets after the excesses of presents, food and festivities leaves very few having big nights out. The few we do get heading our way are often those on weekly pay or benefits and are not big fans of prudence. The nights are cold, wet and sometimes snowy, streets are quiet, venues are quiet. All in all not an inspiring mix for a mid-week night on the razz.
Early finishes seem to be the fashion of the season, some even before I start.

Food Review

At the end of a shift the hot fast food options are limited. I'm not gonna be bothered with a pot noodle at 5am and it's just a little too early for the greasy spoon by the bus depot to have the hot plate frying. This leaves me with a few select takeaways to indulge my hunger. Pizza's, chicken, kebabs and burgers. I have sampled all of their various delights and I feel I should relate a couple of my findings.
The cheap and cheery late night pizza places often don't use real cheese, more a cheese substitute involving some lovely fish protein. Not particularly noticeable when inebriated but very appreciable when sober and eating this in a brightly lit kitchen back at home. Cheesy chips often fall foul of this too.
Garlic sauce is not for every day. Savoury and enticing to even the most resilient pallets. The garlic carrier may vary between mayo, yogurt or some satanic middle ground between the two. There may be green stuff included, mint, coriander, anonymous green. The garlic can boost your immune system, reduce your attractiveness to women. Day in day out it does however seem to penetrate your blood stream, in a hot sweaty club this is not the way to go.
Too many carb's just before bedtime, even if it takes you to 7am to get your head down, sit around and give you a gut. Good to fuel you up early doors, bad to lay down on. For this I avoid the battered chicken, the garlic breads and the like.
The decision then lies between the burgers and the kebabs. The solution for me is the chef's special burger, the dirty hybrid of cheese burger and kebab. One or two beefburgers, by this time of the night reheated on the griddle, not typically cooked from fresh, processed cheese slices, bringing the cow derived content to about half the event. Then doner kebab meat, lamb based grilled fun with high fat, salt and taste content. Top it with salad, onion, chili, garlic, tommyK or otherwise and enjoy in a sesame seed bun. Highly calorific fuel to makeup for the hours spent sweating, dashing about a busy club and wrestling drunkards.

Once a year wankers

This time of year, any day of the week, you get people out drinking and socialising who don't usually do this. They don't regularly come into town and work their way around the bars and clubs of town. They don't regularly start drinking at lunchtime and try to keep playing 'til 4am.
They don't interact with other drunk people, bar staff or doorstaff. These folk can end up getting into rows in taxi queues, not thinking that the shivering line of folks is trying to do exactly what they want to do. They fall in the street and knock their teeth out and wonder why they get advice on getting a taxi to A&E and not an ambulance.
They ask barstaff, busy and tired, for things they don't stock and then get abusive when they can't comprehend that not every bar is the same. They can be arrogant and disrespectful when dealing with all the many working folk they meet. For taxi-drivers and takeaway workers, they annoy and irritate, for me and my colleagues they present an entertaining challenge. These folk aren't regulars, their once a year money will not make or break the venues we work for. They often won't remember anything in detail and they don't have a clue what level of behaviour is expected of them. This allows us to have all sorts of fun and games. There will be some wives and husbands getting confused, befuddled, inebriated and part frozen other halves coming home in the wee small hours. I hope I can be the cause of as many of these as possible, after all it is christmas, and I've got to spread the cheer.

Pseudonym

When at work, I don't feel the need to give out my name to everyone I encounter. Quite often this is just to retain a little distance, sometimes it is to pretend to be more amiable than you actually want to be when dealing with horrors. Sometimes it's just to get a serious wind up going. I'm typically Bob, sometimes Max, or Frank. There's little need for consistency as the typical customer doesn't remember daft details like the doorman at their 5th venue of the night's name.
It's also advisable to let the others on your team know your fake name and handy to know if they're using one. You can always pretend, that when Daz at the front door, going by the name James, has sent a punter looking for Frank, being me, that he's not working tonight, James must have gotten confused, I'm Bob, short for Robert but everyone calls me Bob. Yeah, I'm not the full shilling but it does alleviate some of the boredom.

Put it away

Now doormen have a very bad reputation when it comes to their monogamy and their morality. The phrase 'round these parts being door whores, which is also how their dance partners are known. For some ladies a musclebound gent with a modicum of self control, a wage and little free time is a winner. For a large number of doormen, this is enough of a reason to practice the most essential bodily function. For a few of them it can become habitual.
There are a few classic colleagues who have had to make themselves scarce when their Tuesday girl makes an appearance on their Thursday night and mrs Thursday is not in the picture but is in the club. Doorman ducks out and only does flybys on the respective parties before being fortunately called away to finish the night at another venue. Another married colleague of mine juggled several others to his wife by the simple ruse of saying the venue finished two hours later than it did giving him time to indulge himself before being missed. These are but a few of the shenanigans the emotionally simplistic gents of my profession get up to.
Not a good trend in my colleagues and not a universal one it has to be said.
On a whole utility calculus I'm not entirely sure a good door whore doesn't provide more happiness than a monogamous one.

I See

Yes, it's cold.
No you can't have my coat, my hat, my gloves, my boots.

Yes, it's cold out.
No, I had noticed, I've been standing in it for two, three maybe four hours.

Yes, it's icy.
No, they haven't gritted it, they might be gritting bus routes and thoroughfares.

Yes, it's slippy.
I've been watching folk fall over all night.

Yes, it's cold.
It's bloody winter, you'd be stunned if it wasn't at 3 in the morning.