Drinking habits
酒性
Sobering
醒酒中
The British love affair with the bottle appears to be ending
英伦的酒精情事或可终结
Oct 6th 2012 | from the print edition
EARLIER this year David Cameron announced a crackdown on binge drinking. Using a five-year-old survey to illustrate the dissolutestate of Britain’s youth, the prime minister suggested that boozingwas a perennial problem. But following a peak around the millennium (when drinking hit levels not reached since before the first world war) sobrietyhas set in. Since 2004 alcohol consumption has dropped by one-eighth, to 8.3 litres per person per year, according to an official survey. Tax receipts tell a similar story.
今年早些时候，卡相宣布对国人纵酒狂饮的情况进行严厉打击，他用一份显示国内青年放纵状态的五年调查，指出该问题由来已久。但是它在千禧之际达到了顶峰（达到了自一战前的最高水平）之后，节制时代来临了。根据一份官方调查，自2004年以来，英国人的酒精摄入量下降了八分之一，为平均每人每年8.3升。税单方面的情况也类似。
The young are leading. In 2003 70% of 16- to 24-year-olds told interviewers they had had a drink in the previous week; by 2010 just 48% had. The proportion of 11- to 15-year-olds who had drunk in the previous week halvedover the same period. Heavy drinking sessions are down too. (By contrast, drinking among older age groups has remained steady since the late 1990s.) The fate of “alcopops” is indicative. Luridlycoloured and aimed at young women, they invited tabloid disdain. But today’s teenagers are unimpressed (see article).
在这点上，青年人走在前面。2003年，介于16到24岁受访者中有70%称他们上周喝过一次酒，而到了2010年该数据仅为48%。同期，该情况在11到15岁的受访者中也减少了一半。狂饮酒会也有所减少（与此相反，老年人的饮酒状况自1990年代后期起就一直保持稳定）。“波普甜酒”（alcopops）的命运也具有象征意义：这种色彩俗艳的酒以年轻女性为目标受众，在小报上登广告，但是今天的青少年并不把它当回事（见相关报道）。
No one explanation for this trend is entirely satisfactory. The decline in youthful drinking began before the financial crisis. Immigration has added to the number of religious teetotallers, but the effect is small. The last Labour government’s attempt to introduce a continental-style café culture with 24-hour licensing probably helped to make drinking more suburban and less hedonistic: if pubs in the sticksstay open an hour later, puntersare less likely to get the bus into town. But most pubs did not extend opening hours by much. More broadly, drinkers have retreated into their homes: “on-trade” sales, in pubs and clubs, have fallen by a third over the past decade.
目前对此变化的所有解释都不能让人完全信服。年轻人饮酒量下降的趋势在金融危机爆发前就出现了。移民群体增加了有宗教信仰而绝对禁酒者的数量，但影响甚微。上一届工党政府尝试将24小时授权营业的欧陆咖啡文化引入英国，这可能把酒吧更往郊区赶，喝酒的享乐性变弱了：如果乡下酒吧多营业一个小时，买醉者就不太可能赶上进城巴士了。不过多数酒吧也不会延时营业太久。更广泛的情况是：酒客回归家庭，酒吧和会所的“店内”销售量在过去十年里下降了三分之一。
Cultural shifts have played a part, too. Fiona Measham, a Lancaster University criminologist, says patterns of drink and drug use tend to go in 10- to 15-year cycles as generations react against those preceding them. Binge-drinking has lost its glamour, she suggests. Others argue that drinking habits have become polarised, with the moderate majority increasingly distanced from a crapulousminority. The young now have Facebook and other forms of entertainment. Calculations by Enders Analysis show a rise in primetime Friday and Saturday night TV watching. Recession has entrenched this behaviourby eroding disposable income.
文化转变对此也有影响。兰开斯特大学的犯罪学家Fiona Measham说酒精和毒品用量一般呈现出10到15年的循环，因为后一代人往往反对前一代人。她认为大饮特饮已经魅力不再了。其他人认为饮酒习性出现了分化情况——节制的多数和暴饮的少数距离越拉越大。如今年轻人还有Facebook和其它娱乐途径。恩德斯分析机构（Enders Analysis）的分析显示周五周六夜间收看电视的黄金时段饮酒量会上涨，而经济不景气带来的可支配收入减少也影响着人们的喝酒行为。
Pubs and clubs are perturbed, but the drinks industry is less worried. Alcohol companies are increasingly minded to boost margins rather than sales—what the drinks analysis team at UBS calls the “premiumisation” of the market.
酒吧和会所对此忧心忡忡，但酒品行业并没那么担心。酒企越发注意提高利润而非销售量，瑞银的饮料分析团队将之成为市场的“优质化”。
The result is less public mayhem. Drink-driving convictions dropped by a third between 2007 and 2010 despite a rise in breathalyser tests. Drunkenness convictions have halved since 2000. But there is a lingering worry. Last year three-quarters of admissions to hospital where alcohol was the main cause were the result of chronic problems rather than one-off binges. Stephen Dorrell, who heads Parliament’s health select committee, suggests the government’s alcohol strategy should now place more emphasis on public health. The party was fun. The hangover will be long, and painful.
其结果也不至于造成公共乱象。2007到2010年间，尽管测醉器测试更多了，酒驾罪却下降了三分之一。自2000年，醉酒罪数量也腰折了。但忧虑仍挥之不去。去年，主要由酒精问题导致入院的病人中有四分之三是由于慢性疾病，而非一次性豪饮。议会健康优选委员会的负责人Stephen Dorrell建议政府的酒精策略现在应该更多关注公共健康。派对享乐，宿醉漫长难熬唉。
on trade sales& off trade sales
In UK and Ireland when you sell drinks in a pub/bar that is known as the On Trade and when sold through a shop (an "off licence") that is the off trade. I suppose it means consumed off the premises or on the premises.
