24-hour Drinking

Wow, so now it's OK in the UK to serve alcohol for 24 hours solid. Nice. Politicians are screaming it's going to lead to more binge drinking related crimes, family groups are horrified and Yates's Wine Lodge are planning to put boxing rings in their bars, just to formalise the whole drink-violence thing.

My view? Glad you asked. Binge drinking's been around in the UK forever. Friday and Saturday night have always been the same - booze, trouble, fights, if you're lucky cop off with some reasonable looking girl. This isn't a new phenomenon. The only difference is that with the increasing levels of affluence in this country, more people are now able to afford to go out more regularly and spend more during their time out. And that's what really pisses off the politicians. It's that "commoners" are now allowed to do this. The House Of Commons bar has been 24-hour serving for decades, but you don't see them saying that should be banned - of course it's a good idea that our politicians are permanently shitfaced!

I guess it's cos I'm getting older, but the idea of being on the lash until 7am doesn't really appeal to me unless I'm on holiday.

Anyway, maybe if we focused more on why Brits have always needed to get completely obliterated on the weekend, we'd find a way of avoiding the problem all together.