podling89 wrote:When we lived in Eire (Southern Ireland) we used to get vouchers every week for butter. Yip, 2kgs butter vouchers for each adult in the house (2 of us..)

Quote:How in the world did they come up with the bright idea to give so many people that much butter?

Quote:Although the practice may have originated with a desire to produce a special flavour in the butter, butter may have been buried for other reasons. As many superstitions were connected with butter making, it is possible that butter was buried for animals. It could also have been associated with the formerly widespread Booleying System, whereby cattle and sheep were driven to upland pastures for the Summer months. The practice may have also been adopted for reasons of security. A widespread weapon of war was the destruction of all foodstuffs, thereby causing famine. This policy was carried out by the English forces in Tudor and Stuart times. In these cases the discovery of bog butter could indicate the sudden destruction or flight of the people who stored it.

will wrote:http://msn.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10645314&ref=rss

http://msn.nzherald.co.nz/n...objectid=10645275

Starting young with the help of parents.

Quote:

60: percentage of secondary students who drink alcohol.

54: percentage who get it from their parents.

Quote:
Parents who believed supplying alcohol to teenagers was acceptable were talking crap, a southern principal said yesterday.

Schools yesterday backed a call by Verdon College principal Paul Olsen for parents to unite against the booze culture and start taking responsibility for their children at the weekends.

On Wednesday, Mr Olsen said teen parties were held each weekend in Invercargill that involved alcohol and hundreds of young people.

Such parties left him genuinely concerned for the safety of young people in the city. It was time parents took individual responsibility and asked themselves if that was the culture they wanted for their children, he said.

Yesterday, Southland Boys' High School rector Ian Baldwin said he shared Mr Olsen's concerns, adding the booze culture among the youths would not be addressed until their parents addressed their own drinking habits.

The booze culture in the city was getting worse with teenagers now drinking spirits, he said. Dunstan High School principal Brent Russell said the problem of the youth and alcohol combination was no less in provincial New Zealand centres such as Alexandra than in larger cities.

"Sadly it's part of our culture."

Mr Russell said he and his counterparts believed the lowering of the drinking age more than a decade ago had led to "younger and younger" drinkers.

"When the drinking age was 20 you had 17 and 18-year-olds wanting access to alcohol and with an expectation they could get it. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out there are now 14 or 15-year-olds with the same expectation."

Southland Girls' High School principal Yvonne Browning said it was up to the whole community to tackle the issue.

The concerns of the southern school principals follow a spate of high-profile drinking incidents involving minors in recent weeks.

Gore police yesterday revealed a 13-year-old boy was this month found "blind drunk" and vomiting on the footpath in Gore's Main St after doing vodka shots.

Last weekend, a 16-year-old Invercargill boy was brutally bashed at an alcohol-fuelled teen party, while teenagers in Wanaka embarked on a toxic drinking binge, with two Mount Aspiring College pupils rushed to hospital after collapsing with alcohol poisoning last Friday.

That incident came two weeks after King's College Auckland pupil James Webster died after drinking a bottle of vodka.

Quote:Invercargill ambulance staff are treating comatose or beaten-up youths who have been drinking alcohol almost every weekend, a frontline staffer said.

Invercargill St John team manager Robin Eustace yesterday joined the chorus of calls for a "change of culture" in alcohol consumption among the city's youth.

"We are predominately dealing with assaults which are alcohol related, and also a number of kids with alcohol poisoning, where younger people are unconscious," he said. Alcohol abuse was "absolutely an issue" in the city.

"It's just the culture that seems to be ingrained at the moment,and somewhere along the line we have to change the culture," he said.

Southland Hospital A&E clinical nurse leader Sue Bamford confirmed intoxicated adolescents were regulars at the department on Friday and Saturday nights.

"On one occasion our three resuscitation bays were occupied by them," she said.

Intoxicated under-18-year-olds being treated at A&E was not anew problem but the number had increased when the drinking age was lowered to 18, she said.

"Instead of seeing 17 and 18-year-olds, we started seeing teenagers as young as 13 to 14 years of age."

The shocking revelations come in the wake of southern school principals this week calling on parents to stop supplying their school-aged children with liquor.

Their call has been backed by police, who said yesterday they were taking a hard line.

Inspector Olaf Jensen, of Invercargill, said if police identified people supplying alcohol to minors, they would be prosecuted.

He said police were called to an alcohol-fuelled party in Invercargill every weekend.
"There are (drunk) youths walking around the streets and you have to ask where their parents are, and you have to ask where the parental responsibility is."

fedup wrote:

They may try to crack down on it but at the end of the day the government will never take it all seriously .Kiwis are a nation of piss heads and weed smokers they accept it as part of everyday culture.
I lived there for 3 years and got back here to the uk last september,same problem with the booze here too .
The uk government also says yes we will do this and that and it wont be tollerated but in reality the revenue that is generated by the tax on grog is one that makes them billions every year and they wont be giving that up for anything.
Just the same as nz government wont stop binge drinking because they need the tax revenue more so than here ,also votes at elections mean that any crackdown will cost them dearly.

rule britannia glad to be home ,captain cook should have kept on going and never set foot in the god forsaken rat hole.

will wrote:Look at it this way,the ones that are dumb enough to die of alcohol poisoning don't pass down their genes(mostly),natural selection.

will wrote:Actually kids here grow up faster thye drink much younger,have sexual encounters younger,drive younger
well compared to where i come from anyway.