'Binge drinking sends high blood pressure cases soaring by 74%'
Britain's booze culture has led to a huge increase in patients needing treatment for high blood pressure. The number of adults diagnosed with raised blood pressure - or hypertension - as a result of drinking too much alcohol has jumped by 74 per cent in five years. Although some studies suggest moderate drinking may help to lower blood pressure, heavy drinking is known to drive it up to dangerous levels. According to the Department of Health, men who frequently consume more than eight units of alcohol a day are four times more likely to develop high blood pressure. Women who drink more than six units a day double their risk - Daily Mail
They think it's all over for pubs. It isn't now ...The World Cup has restored pubs to the centre of national life. As Al Murray puts it in his terrible anthem: "Football's not coming home, it's going to the pub." Perhaps because England's performance has been so painful to watch, we have opted to share the anguish. The pub is the right place to slake our thirst for glory, to deaden our dull dread of defeat. It is true that many traditionalists will decry the presence of a television. They tend to share George Orwell's 1940s fantasy of "draught stout, open fires, cheap meals, a garden, motherly barmaids and no radio". But if television is going to help the communal experience, I think we have to let it in - The Independent
U.S. President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron exchanged beers on Saturday to honour their bet over the England-U.S. World Cup soccer match that ended in a draw. "This is Goose Island 312 beer from my hometown of Chicago. ...I advised him that in America we drink our beer cold," Obama said after a meeting with Britain's new prime minister at a Group of 20 summit in Toronto.Cameron reciprocated with a brew local to his Witney constituency called Hobgoblin. Earlier this year, Obama shipped a case of American beer to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper after losing a bet over the men's Olympic hockey final in which Canada beat the United States - Reuters
