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This Week in Lumps
#30 [11/12 - 17/12]

· Microsoft has pulled out the chequebook once again, and has bought Multimap, the privately owned, dominant online mapping service that is snapping at the heels of Google. Multimap, which was established in 1996, is among the UK’s top 10 visited websites, and is apparently receiving more than 10 million clicks each month. It was purchased for an undisclosed sum, but is thought to see founder and shareholder Mr. Sean Phelan bank a significant sum from the deal. He set up the mapping company in 1996, held a 50% shareholding in the firm and had reportedly already raised almost £1.9 million from the sale of a 25% stake to investors just three years after launch.

The move comes after an expensive year for Microsoft with regards to acquisitions and investments. Back in week 23 I mentioned how, after 2 weeks of negotiating, Microsoft paid £117m for a 1.6% stake in Facebook, just months after making its biggest acquisition yet, with the £2.9bn purchase of US online advertising firm aQuantive.

Microsoft said the deal would further expand its existing mapping and location offerings, which include Virtual Earth and Live Search. Microsoft aims to grow the Multimap service offered on both PC and mobile phone devices, while also combining Microsoft’s capabilities, such as aerial map photographs and 3D images. Microsoft hopes that the acquisition “will play a significant role in the future growth of our search business”, mainly to compete with Microsoft’s arch-rival, Google, which provides its own online mapping service, Google Maps. Analysts say that Microsoft could not afford to avoid building a significant mapping service if it was to succeed in becoming a big player in online advertising.

As someone who uses Multimap on a daily basis, I have to admit how much of a pain to use. I prefer Google’s offering much better, as a service which doesn’t plague me with pop-up adverts and hard-to-use tools. I doubt very much that Microsoft plan to radically change anything that Multimap is providing, so for me I won’t be changing my mapping tools any time soon.

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· The end of the calender year means different things to different people. New beginnings, out with the old-in with the new, a time to start fresh. This was very much the case for me last New Years Eve, when I decided not to touch a drop of alcohol for a year.

Now, I’m by no means a heavy boozer; my alcohol consumption has decreased loads compared to when I was in my teens, mirrored with the changes in my choice of drink. The times where I have been drunk have all been enjoyable (from what I can remember, anyway) and I more often than not have a good reason to be in that state, rather than just celebrating the end of the week, or whatever. Since my decision, I’ve had to put up with explaining to lots and lots of people why I’m doing this; the main reason (but not the only reason) behind it is because I just plain wasn’t enjoying it anymore. The environment I was drinking in was fine, it’s just what I was drinking, and how I was reacting to my drink that I wasn’t happy with. To explain this, I need to go back to September of last year, where after meeting up with some old work colleagues for a night of drinking, I came home and noted the following in my own personal blog:

“So I’ve been drinking tonight, for the first time in 3 weeks. I hate it.
I want to get off alcohol, I really do; mainly because it doesn’t do anything for me anymore. I want someone to help me stay confident in staying off the booze.
I type this like I’m some kind of addict, I’m really far from it, but… I’d just like to stay sober for a while…

Telling people you plan to go a whole year without drinking alcohol gets the same reaction as telling them you’ve just eaten their pet rabbit. There’s this unholy mix of shock and disgust that comes on their faces, like they can hardly believe what they’re hearing. I find that people have a difficult time grasping the concept. Maybe it’s because I’m still young, and with that comes this expectant attitude to be drinking every Friday night, getting arse-faced down the local, puking, fighting and swearing our way around the city centre before stumbling in and waking up the neighbours at 4am. The only thing that shocks me more than this ‘accepted’ behaviour is the reaction you get when you shun it. Maybe ‘accepted’ is the wrong word, as although I always thought there was a much stronger social stigma to binge drinking (or alcoholism) in this country, in this case the reaction is more to look away and pretend it’s not happening, than to deal with it head on. This ‘badge of honour’ between friends is rarely out of the media spotlight, for example: when England fans went to the 2006 World Cup in Germany, the alcohol consumption levels were shockingly high, averaging 17 pints each between the 70,000 reported to have been in our around the cities involving the games. The headline Beer We Go depressingly sums it up. Then there’s the more recent reports, like the one from Herefordshire where over 500 boys aged 18 or under had been admitted to hospital with alcohol-related illnesses in one year, coupled with the rise in patients in their twenties, or the story of paramedics having to run a special ambulance service to those in London who just can’t handle their drink, how people as young as 23 are dying through alcohol abuse, and women are drinking so much they are suffering from burst bladders. Does this mean that the UK is full of alcoholics in denial? I think that’s a whole different topic for another day. Opinionated blog mrcrip.com has it’s own hard hitting view:

“This responsible approach to alcohol consumption contrasts sharply with the British way of teaching our young people about alcohol. Youngsters will, typically, be restrained from any amount of alcohol consumption until they are eighteen. They will have witnessed their parents, older siblings and other influential adults always looking forward to the next big night out when they will get ‘rat-arsed’, become belligerent and argumentative, spend the following day nursing a hangover from hell and then talk about what a great night they had, even though they can’t remember much about it. This lousy example-setting, and the culture of over-consumption, leads many young teenagers to obtain exceedingly strong varieties of alcoholic beverages and guzzle to excess. Those who do not join in are considered lightweights. Fights breakout, accidents happen, girls get pregnant, laws get broken and lives get ruined.”

Going back to people’s reaction to my decision; to look at it in a different light, maybe people were so shocked to hear it because it’s so against the norm. It’s certainly not a minority group, youngsters choosing sobriety, or abstaining from any kind of drug are on the rise,

So after 11 and a half months, I’m nearly there. There’s been plenty of questions over the last year, so here’s where I can answer them all, starting with:

“I bet you can’t wait to start drinking again”. False. There’s absolutely nothing stopping me doing another year, or never drinking alcohol again. The bravado that I sometimes put on is often used for comic effect; a well timed ‘I picked a hell of a year to quit drinking’ is always welcome, with little people noticing it has been pinched and altered from the film Independence Day. However, the truth of the matter is I don’t miss it one bit. If being sober wasn’t so socially unacceptable then maybe I could go another year, but it’s unlike me to give two shits what anyone else thinks about my decisions.

“So you don’t go out anymore?” False. This one really grinds my gears. Since when did being sober mean not going out? Or better yet, since when did going out mean the night has to end in drunkenness? I still go to gigs, festivals, and the occasional night out with friends and survive with other drinks. I feel a strong need to point out that even though I’ve been sober, it doesn’t mean I’m not leaving the flat like some kind of hermit. Which can also be tied into my next point…

“I suppose you’ve been saving lots of money” False. Since I’m still going out, and still buying rounds for people, the only money I’m saving is the difference between an alcoholic drink, and a soft drink, which in some places in city centres isn’t much at all. So the only money I can safely say I’ve been saving is buying alcohol from supermarkets for the flat, which is usually rare. Unless you count those occasions where you splash out on unnecessary taxi’s to carry you from pub to pub, or the journey home at 3am in the pouring rain.

“So no more beer belly for you then?” False. Beer is about 96% water and made up of natural ingredients, so the whole ‘beer belly’ aspect only kicks in when you’re talking about nine or ten pints of it, coupled with a poor diet and a lack of exercise. Countries like Belgium and Germany can drink socially and healthily, and still look nothing like some older gentlemen in this country. However the idea of turning into one of these walking kegs is enough to turn you away from beer anyway.

So where does this leave me for 2008? Well, as proud as I am that I managed complete what I set out to do, I feel I have made my point with myself and with others that it can be done, and that there is another option to take instead of getting constantly wasted. To celebrate going one whole year I will indulge in a glass or two of something, however unlike my original plans at the beginning of the year for this occasion, I wont be celebrating too heavily.

If someone was to tell me a few years back that I could go one year without alcohol, I wouldn’t have believed them. What’s more, it’s been totally fine, no dramas, no trips to A&E, no missed days of work, no embarrassing moments. Maybe other people enjoy these moments in life? Maybe they can only enjoy life when they are drinking, or blind drunk? Maybe they cannot stand themselves when they are sober? It gives you funny stories to tell on other nights out I suppose, but for me, I can enjoy life without binge drinking, and 2007 has proved it. I suggest anyone who can’t needs to take a long hard look in the mirror.

And if there’s anyone reading this strongly considering sobriety then I hope you manage to achieve this. In today’s society where alcohol promotion and advertisements can hardly be avoided, and the idea of not drinking sends chills up your friends spines, it’d definitely a tough gig to pull off. And if you’re reading this and one of your friends is currently on the wagon, be nice to them and support what they are doing. Please don’t tease them into a drink; the idea of mates up and down the country ‘accidentally’ buying you a round (and then making you drink it) bears resemblance to a stupid dwarf: it’s not big and it’s not clever.

I close this article with a excerpt from a blog I’ve been reading off an on recently, which features sobriety heavily, and is a welcome addition to my RSS feeds:

“I have to remind myself that alcohol is not some long lost romance I pine for. That the decisions I have made today will allow me to live a healthy and emotionally gratifying life. Even if that means sacrificing that bit of irresponsibility that could turn a mellow Friday evening into a wild escapade.

There is solace in living life with this burden, it could be worse, it could be the burden of being drunk all the time, which is worse. But, there are just few times in my week or month, where I have to remind myself that being sober isn’t a jail sentence…it’s a choice.

And I think I need to take my choices, difficult or not, and learn to laugh the burden off my back every once in a while.”

Merry Christmas Everyone.

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That was the week in lumps, a week in which: The BBC is trying out a new homepage, Tori Amos tells her fans to fuck off, The top 10 most cliché student posters, Ferrari is going green, w00t is the word of the year apparently, a visual guide to what it must be like to be colourblind, and blogging celebrates its 10th birthday.

That was the week in lumps, although most of it was taken up by my long essay on drink. Next week, well I’m not here next week (and neither should you as it’s Christmas day), so I shall see you again in two weeks with a special entry. Until then, boys and girls.

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