Today is the day for the 2:nd annual TBR! Yes, Martin, Anders, Oscar and I are going to meet up at Martins place for a couple of beers and some music. If it wasn’t fore this head ache of mine I’d be pretty stoked, now I’m only pretty stoked along with a head ache. I’ll do everything in my power in order to get rid of it until 1700h when the fun begins. i think I have it because of lack of water. I haven’t been drinking enough of it.

So now it’s of to the Systems company or the Systematic company, the only place, except bars and restaurants, where you can buy alcohol (and by alcohol I mean every form of beverage exceeding 3,5% in strength) in Sweden.

In getting the link above I noticed this text on Systembolagets website:

“This is Systembolaget
Systembolaget, the Swedish Alcohol Retail Monopoly, exists for one reason only: To minimize alcohol-related problems by selling alcohol in a responsible way, without profit motive.”

Now, many people have questioned this monopoly, and rightly so. The statement above, which I again stress is a direct quote, raises alot of questions, three of the more prominent being:

Do we in Sweden have less alcohol-related problems than countries without alcohol retail monopoly? 

Do retail monopoly’s by default handle there commerce responsibly?

Do retailers motivated by profit handle there commerce irresponsibly?

I think that the answer to all these questions is: no, and we should therefor abandon the alcohol retail monopoly here in Sweden. (I could, but won’t, dive into serious argumentation here. If you dont agree with me, leave a note in the comment field and I’ll get back to the issue.)

Didn’t mean to get all political. TBR!

Haven’t got any pictures, except the one posted yesterday, of the TB so I’m going to go with one posted a couple of months ago. This was taken way back in 1666 during the great fire of London. Marv and I are casually having a drink watching the hole city (hotellramadajävel) go up in flames. Man… 1666. Has it all ready been 342 years. It seems like only yesterday,

One thing they forgot to mention under the link above, the one about the great fire of London was that in London at the time there was a alcohol retail monopoly and it being a Sunday on the day of the fire the stores, the alcohol stores; called Systemica, were closed. The people of London had for a long time grew tired of this fact; that they couldn’t get there supper wine on Sundays and had to settle for muddy water. On this September day they had had enough. They thought by setting fire to the whole place, and burn the cuty to the ground, they could have a new order, one which let them buy wine on Sundays. The Government to this day still claims that a monopoly was the best way to keep down alcohol related problems and that there in 1666 were very few such problems. All though the fire was an indirect cause of alcohol and therefore an alcohol related problem. The government won’t acknowledge this. Presented with the fact that that cost of rebuilding a whole city can be directly lead to alcohol were just met with silence.