Chief executives of big companies and public sector organisations are coping with their stressful positions by drinking the equivalent of almost three bottles of wine a week, new research shows.

Three bottles a week? Lightweights!

There are quite a few stories like this one turning up in the papers, and you tend to see the same thing again and again. For example, in this Independent story it says:

Four in 10 men and a third of women exceeded the daily limits at least once a week.

This happens a lot: “recommended maximum” becomes “daily limit”. And those maximum figures are made up, because the committee charged with setting the recommendations simply plucked the numbers out of the air. But those “limits” make things sound pretty scary:

Men holding the highest positions drink an average of almost 23 units a week – more than 11 medium (175ml) glasses of wine.

According to the government’s Know Your Limits website, a pint of Kronenbourg contains 3 units and a bottle of 14% wine – which is pretty typical for half-decent supermarket reds – contains 10.5 units. So let’s reword, shall we?

Men holding the highest positions drink an average of almost 23 units per week – more than one bottle of red wine and four pints of lager. A week! Everybody panic!

I don’t mean to make light of alcohol abuse, alcoholism, cirrhosis or the various other lovely downsides to boozing, but really, with all the real booze-related problems we need to worry about (eg getting your face kicked off in a city centre), who gives a shit if bosses have a bottle of wine and a couple of pints per week? Given the current state of the economy it’s a miracle they aren’t knocking back a bottle of brandy before breakfast.Православни икони