Quite. To clarify, there are no longer specified hours in the law, and all decisions about licensing individuals, premises and hours is now left to local councils (rather than the appointed magistrates, as used to be the case). Remains to be seen if that has any effect on local election results!

In view of my earlier post about camera crews waiting for trouble in Copenhagen, I was amused to read that 50 BBC crews were sent out on the first night of "24 hour drinking" to film scenes of drunken debauchery.
Sadly for them it was quite a quiet night with hardly any mayhem at all.
Of course, the cold weather may have played a part.

I was amused by the BBC's man in Newcastle who said (on the Today programme) that he "counted 3 piles of vomit walking down the street" :-)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/m...er/4468884.stm


I think the pubs should shut earlier - ;)

A few thoughts;
of course the press hype up anything to do with drinking. It gets all the reactionaries going and they buy papers. There has always been a peculiar attitude to drinking in Britain, largely instigated, I've always thought, by the ruling classes, who themselves have had no difficulty in getting a drink whenever they want (gents' clubs are exempt), feeling that they should rule on the habits of their inferiors. Binge drinking has always been associated with restrictions. I can remember being in Glasgow in the days of the '10 o'clock swill' watching comatose men sliding down walls at 10.10 when the pubs threw out. You don't seem to see that now, when the pubs can stay open late. Maybe now that English pubs can stay open later, we'll get rid of the packs of pissheads wandering round town centres at 11.30 falling over, throwing up and abusing people.
I do have to say, as a dedicated european, that you don't see as much of this in Europe, although German town centres late on, do have a remarkable resemblance to their British counterparts.
Perhaps it's an Anglo Saxon thing? We have a house in Spain, near the coast and the prolem is bad there too. It's not the Spaniards though. It's Brits predominently, then Irish, Scandinavians, and some Dutch and Germans. Very rarely French or french speaking Belgians. A very unscientific hypothesis suggests that all the countries where alcohol is frowned upon, restricted or highly taxed are the worst offenders.
I am from a family of mixed English, Irish and Spanish origins, where drink has always been available, consumed in quantity and greatly appreciated. (No sectarian splits by the way. The methodist half was as appreciative as the catholic half)Though I enjoy most types of alcoholic drinks and an certainly butting up against the weekly consumption limits suggested by the politicians, I have only been antisocially drunk once (aged 18 and by accident) and am determined never to do it again! That attitude came from a sensible, lifelong association with alcohol, without imposed restriction, but with the constant undercurrent of 'drink, but with dignity'. Perhaps our current worries stem from the oppposite view, perhaps unconsciously suggested by restrictions; that drink is something vaguely sinful, to be grasped to the full, whenever the opportunity presents, but which will become boringly mundane when available without imposed rationing.

I don't think there's a definitive answer to this. Time was (and maybe still is) that France had a big alcohol problem, it's just different from other countries': more to do with the health effects of constant intake at home (in a lot of cases), where countries with a more puritanical tradition have public binge-drinking. But, certainly in recent years, binge-drinking in the UK has had a lot to do with influences other than the alcohol itself, let alone when it's available and how much it costs - things to do with self-assertion and display, group culture and other sociological goings-on among the young.