Small Beer

Anchor. I said Anchor.

What the festive fuck? Over Crimbo I saw a story on the BBC news website that made me splutter a half chewed twiglet over my keyboard. Not because it was particularly horrific or shocking, but because it was such a belter of a non-story. The headline? Dad gives up drinking for sick daughter's hospital.
Aye, poor, poor kraken-fumbler, you did indeed read that right. To cut a shit story as short as possible, said father is not drinking for a year to raise funds for the hospital that is treating his sick daughter. And that's the story. That's it. That's some bloke isn't chugging beer for 365 days. Yes, his daughter's rare illness gets a mention but for some fucked up reason it's this most piffling of sacrifices that makes the headline.
Again, I ask you, what the festive fuck? Who in the frig decided that this was a story? Perhaps it's someone who is so incapable of passing a discarded tin of half-swigged Carling that not drinking for the flimsy sum of a year warrants star billing on a news site. 
Ok, so I'm not a drinker. I've just had my annual port n lemon. But that's because dealing with Kraken Junior while cradling a hangover would be the equivalent of dipping a foot into the seventh circle of hell and letting Satan himself nibble on my toehairs. It just ain't worth it. It sure as shit, though, doesn't warrant a BBC news story. Just label it under parental sacrifice, one of the things you do to stumble from one day of childrearing to the other without alerting the lankier-haired factions of the social services.
Sure, raising money for charidee is a noble pursuit. That's not the problem. Nor is the fact that the dry dad's daughter has a rare illness. That's, of course, horrible. But the guy hasn't exactly decided to reject his body's own production of amino acids for a year, has he? And I haven't heard mention of how he's scaling the Burj Khalifa via the Blu Tack he's stuck to his tongue either.
Like the dad says in this arsed-up excuse for news, refusing booze has been a "piece of cake". He also revealed this thrilling insight: "I almost ordered a drink by mistake the other day and then I realised". And if this wasn't enough to convince the misguided reporter that there was fuck all to write about - if these are your best quotes, you're barking up the wrong exclusive - then I suspect that booze is indeed a problem, mainly because you'd have to be as drunk as fuck to file it. 
So get a grip, BBC. Go into rehab, picture a world without Heineken and reconsider whatever wild reasons make you want to be a news service. Whatever the hell they are, this story ain't it.