Express & Star comment: Time to be merry rather than messy
This is a time for fun and to be merry. And some people get very merry.
Today is the Friday before the weekend before Christmas.
Welcome to Black Eye Friday, or Mad Friday, which says it all really.
For the emergency services tonight promises, or perhaps that should be threatens, to be hectic, as revellers head for the pubs and clubs to celebrate Christmas in a liquid manner.
We already know what it can be like in our towns and cities when the newly-paid masses hit the town and “have a good time,” which some of them equate with getting drunk.
So tonight and the weekend could be just like that, but with boosters on.
The drinking culture is ingrained in many of Britain’s young men and young women, although to be fair in recent times there has seemed to be an easing up as they find other pleasures and outlets, such as the sociable cosy comfort of coffee houses.
And also to be fair there is nothing wrong with going out to have a drink, it’s to be expected, and most will enjoy their night out and will experience or cause no problems apart from a sore head in the morning.
When things go too far, it is the emergency services in the front line who have to pick up the resulting mess.
For the police this might be through revellers becoming aggressive through drink, and for the ambulance service there is the prospect of having to deal with those who have drunk so much that they have, one way or the other, come by injury, or in extreme cases are dangerously drunk in a medical sense.
At which point the matter lands on the doorstep of hospitals, and medical staff who are hard pressed at the best of times.
It’s going to happen whatever sensible advice we try to impart – you know, you don’t actually have to get drunk to have a good time. All things in moderation, as they say.
But we can give our thanks in advance to the emergency services and medical staff and hope, but not expect, that they will enjoy a quiet night on the beat.
