- Demon drink - 28th September 2026
- Trumpet voluntary - 28th September 2026
- Trumped - 25th September 2026
For our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, it was always central to become used to a hard-drinking culture in journalism at the start of his 43 year career, so he looks now with interest at the latest figures which show a marked decline in alcohol consumption.
At the start in newspapers it was really bad.
Reporters would disappear at lunchtimes and get totally sozzled, returning to their work afterwards.
I could never understand how they managed to do their jobs in the afternoons!
I vividly remember one reporter’s copy was excellent in the mornings, but couldn’t be relied on after lunch because he had had a few drinks.
A friend of mine in the newsroom saw me talking to him once, and mimed lifting an imaginary glass to his lips behind his back…
In broadcasting it wasn’t quite as bad, but there were still the vestiges of this drinking culture.
At HTV Cymru Wales (HTV CW) we used to colonise the small corner bar of a Cardiff pub across the road, after the evening programme Wales at Six (WaS) went out.
When I then moved to BBC Cymru Wales (BBC CW) (where I was for 23 years), there was even a club ON THE PREMISES which was used for drinking (there isn’t now thankfully!), and before a ‘session’ (which I DIDN’T partake in), people would cry: “Surf’s up!”.
It was the tail end of that culture (and I’m glad it’s GONE now altogether), when the perception was that you couldn’t really be creative unless you were half-cut (like Dylan Thomas).
This is why I am intrigued by the latest figures showing that alcohol may be going out of fashion – not just among journalists like me, but in the wider public too (particularly with younger people), and companies appear to be encroaching on rivals’ turf, to maintain their market share.
Time was that brewers, vintners and distillers had little to fear from one another.
Each beverage had its occasion to shine: people imbibed beer as they watched a game (or taking a break from writing a story), sipped wine over dinner, and downed spirits as they partied late into the night.
Some consumers defied convention, but drinks-makers themselves stuck to their terroir.
Not any more (and journalists changing their habits are only partly to blame), because old boundaries are being crossed.
Over the past five years the combined market value of the West’s 10 largest listed alcoholic-drinks companies has fallen from $500 billion to $320 billion, and investors are nervous about the long-term future, because it’s believed that abstemious youngsters may never drink as much as their forebears.
The backdrop is of concern to them, as global alcohol consumption fell by two per cent in 2025, the third straight year of decline.
So it isn’t just journalists stopping nipping to the pub for an alcoholic drink behind this change.
EVERYONE is altering their routine!
The memories of Phil’s astonishing 43 year award-winning career in journalism (when a hard drinking culture was much in evidence at the start) as he was gripped by the rare neurological disabling condition, Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order the book now!
Tomorrow – disturbing news that the Royal Household has been forced to make security upgrades in countering the cyber threat from Russia, highlights how The Eye too has been targeted.
