A good test of sobriety is to ask a pharmacist for a big box of soluble Solpadeine Plus.
(In the event that one is not sober just ask for some Sammy Sulpers.) The pharmacist invariably doesn’t listen and tries to sell tablets of Solpadeine Max. I knew it would happen sometime and now it has come to pass. Soluble Solpadeine Plus is no longer available in the UK, so scour the shelves while stocks last. “Use for 3 days only.” I have been a user for forty years. The brand belonged to Glaxo until 2012 when it was sold to Omega Pharma, based in Vauxhall Bridge Road, London. Omega was bought by Perrigo in 2014 – an American Irish-registered pharmaceutical company that had the distinction of being fined Euros 1.64 billion in 2018 by the Irish taxman; a fine only exceeded by Apple’s Euros 13 billion fine in Ireland. In the event I believe Perrigo wriggled out of paying their fine.
Co-Codamol is the equivalent with the same content: 500 mg paracetamol, 8 mg codeine phosphate. The latter is an addictive opiate but no more addictive than alcohol. It’s owned by Kent Pharma, in turn owned by a private equity group. These pharma firms seem to change hands every few years.
Sir Wilfred Lawson (1829 – 1906), whose bronze stands almost outside the Savoy’s American bar in Victoria Embankment Gardens, did not have hangovers. He was pro-temperance and pro-fox hunting but as Wikipedia explains he was anti almost everything else.
“At the time of his death, Lawson was chiefly known as a pro-Boer, and anti-everything else; a little Englander, a Peace-at-any-price Man, a would-be destroyer of the established church, the House of Lords, the liquor traffic, and several other institutions less robust. He supported payment for Members of parliament, women’s suffrage, the construction of a Channel tunnel, the Irish Home Rule movement, opposed coercion in all its manifestations and stoically defended Free Trade whenever a threat appeared. After a long career his successes were few, although in 1892, after an eighteen-year struggle, he did eventually get a majority against the motion for adjourning on the Derby day.”
