Can you prove your age?

I've never had sloe gin before. I was quite excited about having it because a few people had told me it was really nice.

In the last month, I've had to prove my age 3 times to buy alcohol. This weekend it was in our local Marks and Spencer's. My booze stained, wrinkled-brow, world weary face and the fact that I was buying expensive Sloe Gin should have been enough for the idiot they put in charge of the till but she still thought it necessary to ask me for ID to prove that I wasn't under 18 (and a schoolchild). Now I know that there's currently an appetite for fearing our feral young who are all, according to the gutterrags, hoodie wearing drunks. I know it's not necessarily a good thing for kids under the age of 18 to be trained pissheads but for fucks sake, If we're going to have a society where people can freely use alcohol there will always be a period of time when those who suddenly have access to this power drug have to learn the limits, how to behave and the consequences of taking alcohol. Therefore there will always be pissed up kids being antisocial and doing things they wouldn't usually do sober in the cities on a Friday night. It's not a new thing. It's been happening for hundreds of years. Still I can't see the teenagers down the local park getting pissed on Sloe Gin for the same reason I can't see them stealing caviar from Harrods to use as in a sex act they saw in the latest Skins episode.

I'm fucking tired with the middle aged constantly having a go at youth as if the young people of today are some new thing to be afraid of. The middle aged of today were the Teddy Boys, Rockers, Psychobillies and Punks of yesteryear. I remember getting pissed when I was too young and doing things that I would be ashamed of today. I remember being antisocial. We all do stupid things when we're young, whether we're drunk or not. The teenager's of today are monitored, caged and fretted over more than any in history. It won't be long until suburban parents start fitting CCTV cameras into their children's bedrooms. There are already many companies like www.traceamobile.co.uk which offer parent's the opportunity to track the movements of their children (through their mobile phone) without them knowing. They say "Do you worry where your children are? Are you anxious if they stay out late?". Can you image what kind of perverse mindset a parent must have to think their child will benefit from this surveillance.

We worry that our children are stressed, suicidal and drink and do terrible things without thinking that this (if it does exist) could be related to the fact they're constantly being tested, examined, pressured, watched, told what to do and what to think. We tell them they'll have a crap life if they don't pass their stupid fecking GCSEs (who even remembers what they got for their GCSEs anymore!?) and that if they have the sex their bodies are telling them to have they'll get pregnant and their genitals will rot from diseases, that there are paedos around every corner....and yet we wonder why some lose respect for society and stop listening to us.

All is beside the point that I'm clearly not under 18. Now I've seen the posters which state they'll ask you to prove you're not trying to buy alcohol underage if you look under 21 to cover their own arses...but I really wouldn't pass for looking under 21 even if I stood at the till in a faeces packed nappy, sucking on a giant breast and gurgling baby sick.

Still gigglytits at the counter made me get out my old man wallet, go through my cards for my drivers licence and hand it to her before passing it back to me without even fucking glancing at it.

Anyway, I got home and drank the sloe gin. It tasted like the bladder contents of a drunk Thai prostitute with a urinal infection.