"Takeaway beer" or "take away beer"?

Wandering around the internet looking for examples of extreme, crazy, or extremely crazy laws, I found these;

Only a qualified electrician is allowed to change a light bulb in Victoria, Australia

In Canada, by law, one out of every five songs on the radio must be sung by a Canadian

In Florida, it is illegal to pass wind in a public place after 6pm on Thursdays

In all of these instances, I find it hard to disagree. Anything electrical is potentially life threatening. Who among us hasn't screwed in that bulb only to get a vivid surprise when the bulb springs to life, indicating our lack of forethought where surging volts of death are concerned? Secondly, if we all started doing the jobs of electricians, they might be encouraged to take up secretarial work, or policing, that's not a good idea.

Canada has produced some awesome songsters. Leonard Cohen, Alanis Morissette and Joni Mitchell are just some of the amazing musicians from the land of maple syrup, so the chances of having to listen to Justin Bieber or Celine Dion that often seems within tolerance levels.

As for Floridian flatulence, well chances are that you're only going to be adding to the unnecessarily high methane levels if you go around casually bottom burping so maybe it should be enforced globally?

None of these laws would stop me from enjoying my time in these countries but that is where they differ from Indonesia's recent decision to remove bottled beer from sale in Minimarts.

The government of recently elected President Joko Widodo seems to be doing all it can to appease it's conservative coalition partners. To protect the morals of young people in a 90%-plus Muslim populated country by removing the temptation from the purchaser and the Minimart sales staff, is something I could live with. 

However, as far as I have been able to determine, the ban only applies to the "local store", not the supermarkets, even going so far as to specify that any supermarket with more than 12 square metres of sales floor area may continue to sell beer as long as it is located in an area next to the checkout.

So I'm perplexed at having visited the four big supermarkets in my local area this weekend; Hypermart, Farmers Market, Giant and Carrefour, to discover that they have all removed beer from their shelves and when asking a member of staff about it I was greeted with thinly veiled contempt. And laughter. 

 



It is not a need for alcohol on a daily basis that drives me, just the need to be able to enjoy a cold, frosty pilsner in the comfort of my own home whenever I feel like it. This is why I have less of an issue with the minimarts being banned from selling it. But why the need for supermarkets to jump upon the same waggon? 

Sure, beer is still available in restaurants, but at marked up prices and not the comfort of my own home. The agreement to allow Bali to be exempt from the law, on the grounds of disrupting tourism, is so shallow it resembles a beer stain. Tourism is a driver throughout the archipelago.

I also don't believe it's 'Creeping Sharia', a term that suggests Indonesia's slow move to that kind of  government. Rather, it's probably similar to visas and other red tape where the right hand refuses to take any interest in what the left is doing.

Chuffin' Hell It's Cold! - UK Trip, February 2015 part 3

.....I have to admit that Garuda were not bad at all. The Boeing 777 with its 3-3-3 seating formation found me in the aisle seat of the middle section. The seat between me and the old guy at the other side was empty so we both stored pillows and blankets there but I realised the minute the snoring started, his, not mine, that conversation wasn't going to be on the agenda. That actually suited me fine as the benefit of a 1am flight is that you're pretty much ready for sleep. I waited until the meal had been served and had a beer with the unimaginative but tasty chicken and rice, watched Lethal Weapon and promptly fell asleep.

When I woke up we were about halfway to Amsterdam and at some point during my 4 hours sleep a clingfilm-wrapped sandwich had been deposited next to me. It didn't look particularly appetising so I went to help myself to a cup of tea from the galley. Yes, in the menus that had been handed out we were politely informed that should we need midflight service, we should help ourselves to items from the galley! I would imagine if this delegation of tasks continues, in a few years I'll be flying the plane! Armed with a cup of tea-I did think that a few miniatures and mixers was wrong at 7am Jakarta time-I made my way back to my seat and dug in my rucksack for some snacks that I'd packed. Airline food is passable, but there's never really anything in the way of chocolate-y stuff to go with a cuppa, and certainly nothing to compete with an orange Rocky or a peanut butter Beng Beng.

A few episodes of Big Bang Theory and I fell asleep again, waking this time with only 4 more hours to go. The Superman movie 'Man of Steel' took up another two and a half hours of that and also took in some more unimaginative chicken and rice for breakfast and pretty soon we were descending into Schipol.

Sat in the middle section, I really couldn't get a decent view of conditions on the ground, but once off the airplane it became apparent that Northern Europe was gripped by some sort of nuclear Winter. The sky was white and there was evidence of fallen snow, not bad for a city three metres below sea level. But it was the bone chilling cold which felt like -30 that got to me the most, and this was in a tunnel leading from the aircraft to the arrival/transfer lounge! Turns out it was actually a tropical 4 degrees, but what do I know.

We'd arrived an hour late, but all that meant was that we'd have an hour less transit so I whiled away some of it in a Heineken bar. I ordered a large beer and after seeing the menu a curried chicken flatbread seemed like a plan, especially as I wasn't expecting any food on the flight to Newcastle and wasn't sure exactly when in fact I would be eating again. If this weather was anything to go by, Newcastle could be one of the first victims of a new ice age.

The beer arrived and I sat surfing the net, messaging Yohana and sipping the beer while waiting for the food, after about twenty minutes, the waiter saw my empty glass and asked if I'd like another. He also asked if I'd had my sandwich yet. I told him that I hadn't but that there was no rush (strange that we English say things like that, especially considering there was only forty more minutes until boarding time) The second beer arrived along with the sandwich five minutes afterwards and delicious it was too. As I came to pay it was the same waiter that served me. "One beer and one sandwich" he declared, not asked. "No, two beers" I replied, honestly.....now what happened next was nothing short of gobsmacking. I'm sat in an airport, a prisoner to whatever pricing structure the airport feel like using and with no choice but to pay, when the waiter said "That's ok, the first beer's on me because of the wait for the sandwich". I thanked him profusely, left a five Euro tip and made my way with a beaming smile that was more about the generosity than the two large Heinekens to wait for the short flight to Newcastle.......