Poms face alcohol challenge
Feb 2nd 2005, 12:55 am
#1
(It's not my real name)
Thread Starter
Joined: Sep 2002
Location: Ilukapool. WA
Posts: 12,467
Poms face alcohol challenge
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12123234-2,00.html
Poms face alcohol challenge
WITH Jason Donovan starring in the stage version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in London's West End, you would think the English would have finally dropped the cheap gibes at our cultural heritage.
Puzzlingly, this is not the case. The reputation we enjoy remains pretty much the same as when Barrington Bradman Bing Mackenzie landed at Heathrow in the 1970s and had his ice-cold tubes flogged from his Qantas bag by a Pommy bastard in customs.
There is little point arguing with the English, or indeed anyone, about our reputation for being big drinkers - especially when you're as drunk as we often are.
But the English are having their own messy little battle with drink, a political one, which has become one of the most hotly-debated topics in the UK.
From next month, the Blair Government plans to deregulate drinking hours so pubs can choose their own closing time.
Advertisement:
At present, all pubs must close at 11pm, every night of the week - unless you go to an eardrum-piercing nightclub or a swish bar where the cover charge can run to more than $20 - and even then they often call last drinks the instant you buy your first.
You really have to hit the ground running if you're going to do a proper number on yourself by 11pm. Which is precisely what happens.
If the world's binge drinkers were put through a time-and-motion study, the English would win hands down.
They have achieved world best practice at the art of getting blind drunk, fast.
There's never any dithering on the way to the pub. In a shout, no one says I'll sit on this one. As 11pm nears, rounds of beer expand to include shots of tequila or vodka, drunk purely for their alcohol content.
The dreaded words "time, please" trigger the type of scenes normally associated with Pamplona. And the last train home is a sight to behold, its stop-start motion turning the carriage floor into a Jackson Pollack canvas while a cross-eyed fellow next to you playfully inserts a kebab in your ear.
One of the biggest chains of pubs (many of them are franchises) is the Slug and Lettuce, known evocatively as The Slut and Legless, for the young, binge-drinking crowd it attracts.
It's the exact opposite of Australia where, apart from Good Friday and Christmas, and unless that pinot noir enthusiast Bob Carr gets his way, we live with the unspoken reassurance that, somewhere, alcohol can be readily had. Here there's a sense of genuine panic that you're going to miss out.
In advocating deregulation, Tony Blair and his ministers have spoken of a desire to create a continental culture, pointing to mainland European nations where wine and aperitifs are accompaniments to tapas, impassioned group song and intellectual chat.
A noble sentiment, but one which Britons are quick to rubbish. The most striking thing about the 11pm rule is that many people, especially the young, avoid going to restaurants because it eats into valuable drinking time.
There is nothing like the Australian culture of starting the night at a pub and then going to a restaurant.
Blair's logic is deregulation will end the bingeing by giving people flexibility and choice. His many critics say it will only get worse, and that the binge will extend into the small hours.
The English are remarkably self-critical in their opposition to the reform. Newspapers, especially The Daily Mail which, with its coverage of drink, crime and immigration appears convinced that the world is about to end, have devoted page after page to photo spreads of women passed out, legs akimbo, on footpaths, drunken louts snotting each other, people chundering all over themselves, under banner headlines such as YOB BRITAIN.
It is reported as if it's a cultural weakness, almost a genetic disorder, on the part of the English.
Certainly, it's hard to imagine Harry the Bastard from the Millwall Supporters Club finishing another successful night of mayhem on the terraces by popping out for a chardonnay and some grissini sticks.
Blair and, officially, the police, although the force seems divided on the question, insist that whatever initial bingeing happens next month will soon dissipate, as drinkers learn to live with the flexible new laws.
His case hasn't been helped by revelations the Government sexed down a report by health bureaucrats predicting that alcohol-related hospital admissions, already costing the National Health Service $4.5 billion a year, could soar further.
But it is impossible to see how the problem could get any worse.
Public anxiety about the existing level of alcohol-related violence, injury and illness is already off the scale. If things did indeed get worse, the current coverage suggests Britain would be unlivable.
It's a sobering thought for our legislators. While an argument can be made that drinking games and promotions should be banned from our pubs, it would be interesting if Australia, as some have argued, looked at re-regulating drinking hours.
For, if the papers here are to be believed, the regulated Brits have a much more serious issue with grog-fuelled violence than the deregulated Aussies.
Heaven forbid. We might become a nation of high-speed bingers, losing our reputation for drinking sensibly in eight different locations for 23 hours over the course of two days.
Poms face alcohol challenge
WITH Jason Donovan starring in the stage version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in London's West End, you would think the English would have finally dropped the cheap gibes at our cultural heritage.
Puzzlingly, this is not the case. The reputation we enjoy remains pretty much the same as when Barrington Bradman Bing Mackenzie landed at Heathrow in the 1970s and had his ice-cold tubes flogged from his Qantas bag by a Pommy bastard in customs.
There is little point arguing with the English, or indeed anyone, about our reputation for being big drinkers - especially when you're as drunk as we often are.
But the English are having their own messy little battle with drink, a political one, which has become one of the most hotly-debated topics in the UK.
From next month, the Blair Government plans to deregulate drinking hours so pubs can choose their own closing time.
Advertisement:
At present, all pubs must close at 11pm, every night of the week - unless you go to an eardrum-piercing nightclub or a swish bar where the cover charge can run to more than $20 - and even then they often call last drinks the instant you buy your first.
You really have to hit the ground running if you're going to do a proper number on yourself by 11pm. Which is precisely what happens.
If the world's binge drinkers were put through a time-and-motion study, the English would win hands down.
They have achieved world best practice at the art of getting blind drunk, fast.
There's never any dithering on the way to the pub. In a shout, no one says I'll sit on this one. As 11pm nears, rounds of beer expand to include shots of tequila or vodka, drunk purely for their alcohol content.
The dreaded words "time, please" trigger the type of scenes normally associated with Pamplona. And the last train home is a sight to behold, its stop-start motion turning the carriage floor into a Jackson Pollack canvas while a cross-eyed fellow next to you playfully inserts a kebab in your ear.
One of the biggest chains of pubs (many of them are franchises) is the Slug and Lettuce, known evocatively as The Slut and Legless, for the young, binge-drinking crowd it attracts.
It's the exact opposite of Australia where, apart from Good Friday and Christmas, and unless that pinot noir enthusiast Bob Carr gets his way, we live with the unspoken reassurance that, somewhere, alcohol can be readily had. Here there's a sense of genuine panic that you're going to miss out.
In advocating deregulation, Tony Blair and his ministers have spoken of a desire to create a continental culture, pointing to mainland European nations where wine and aperitifs are accompaniments to tapas, impassioned group song and intellectual chat.
A noble sentiment, but one which Britons are quick to rubbish. The most striking thing about the 11pm rule is that many people, especially the young, avoid going to restaurants because it eats into valuable drinking time.
There is nothing like the Australian culture of starting the night at a pub and then going to a restaurant.
Blair's logic is deregulation will end the bingeing by giving people flexibility and choice. His many critics say it will only get worse, and that the binge will extend into the small hours.
The English are remarkably self-critical in their opposition to the reform. Newspapers, especially The Daily Mail which, with its coverage of drink, crime and immigration appears convinced that the world is about to end, have devoted page after page to photo spreads of women passed out, legs akimbo, on footpaths, drunken louts snotting each other, people chundering all over themselves, under banner headlines such as YOB BRITAIN.
It is reported as if it's a cultural weakness, almost a genetic disorder, on the part of the English.
Certainly, it's hard to imagine Harry the Bastard from the Millwall Supporters Club finishing another successful night of mayhem on the terraces by popping out for a chardonnay and some grissini sticks.
Blair and, officially, the police, although the force seems divided on the question, insist that whatever initial bingeing happens next month will soon dissipate, as drinkers learn to live with the flexible new laws.
His case hasn't been helped by revelations the Government sexed down a report by health bureaucrats predicting that alcohol-related hospital admissions, already costing the National Health Service $4.5 billion a year, could soar further.
But it is impossible to see how the problem could get any worse.
Public anxiety about the existing level of alcohol-related violence, injury and illness is already off the scale. If things did indeed get worse, the current coverage suggests Britain would be unlivable.
It's a sobering thought for our legislators. While an argument can be made that drinking games and promotions should be banned from our pubs, it would be interesting if Australia, as some have argued, looked at re-regulating drinking hours.
For, if the papers here are to be believed, the regulated Brits have a much more serious issue with grog-fuelled violence than the deregulated Aussies.
Heaven forbid. We might become a nation of high-speed bingers, losing our reputation for drinking sensibly in eight different locations for 23 hours over the course of two days.
Feb 2nd 2005, 1:08 am
#2
Moved out bush!
Joined: Nov 2003
Location: Chittering WA
Posts: 1,093
Re: Poms face alcohol challenge
So thats how they are solving overcrowding!!! Give everybody liver failure, clever that Blair.
Jenny
Jenny
Feb 2nd 2005, 1:09 am
#3
Class 2 Guru
Joined: May 2004
Location: Where the stars look very diff-e-rent today... and tomorrow!
Posts: 1,124
Re: Poms face alcohol challenge
Originally Posted by renth
You really have to hit the ground running if you're going to do a proper number on yourself by 11pm. Which is precisely what happens.
If the world's binge drinkers were put through a time-and-motion study, the English would win hands down.
They have achieved world best practice at the art of getting blind drunk, fast.
There's never any dithering on the way to the pub. In a shout, no one says I'll sit on this one. As 11pm nears, rounds of beer expand to include shots of tequila or vodka, drunk purely for their alcohol content.
If the world's binge drinkers were put through a time-and-motion study, the English would win hands down.
They have achieved world best practice at the art of getting blind drunk, fast.
There's never any dithering on the way to the pub. In a shout, no one says I'll sit on this one. As 11pm nears, rounds of beer expand to include shots of tequila or vodka, drunk purely for their alcohol content.
"The five o'clock swill is the direct result of New Zealand's imbecilic licencing laws. In order to prevent people from getting drunk the pubs close at six, just after the office workers leave work. This means that they have to leave their place of employment, rush frantically to the nearest pub, and make a desperate attempt to drink as much beer as they can in the shortest possible time. As a means of cutting down on drunkenness, this is quite one of the most illogical deterrents I have come across."
He goes on to describe virtually drowning in pints of beer and people periodically shouting "drink up, drink up, they close in a minute".
Funnily enough I had remembered this as taking place in Oz until I dug it out and reread it just now. Such is the strength of Oz's reputation, I suppose.
Feb 2nd 2005, 1:40 am
#4
Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 11,149
Re: Poms face alcohol challenge
As far as I can tell Australians like getting as pissed as the next person. The author of the article obviously hasn't heard of going to the curry house after last orders. This is the nation that had hose down pubs where the bar doubled up as a urinal so one god buy and piss at the same time.
Feb 2nd 2005, 5:18 am
#5
Class 2 Guru
Joined: May 2004
Location: Where the stars look very diff-e-rent today... and tomorrow!
Posts: 1,124
Re: Poms face alcohol challenge
Originally Posted by bondipom
As far as I can tell Australians like getting as pissed as the next person. The author of the article obviously hasn't heard of going to the curry house after last orders. This is the nation that had hose down pubs where the bar doubled up as a urinal so one god buy and piss at the same time.
Feb 2nd 2005, 5:48 am
#6
Forum Regular
Joined: Sep 2004
Location: Parry Sound,Ont.
Posts: 33
Re: Poms face alcohol challenge
Originally Posted by bondipom
As far as I can tell Australians like getting as pissed as the next person. The author of the article obviously hasn't heard of going to the curry house after last orders. This is the nation that had hose down pubs where the bar doubled up as a urinal so one god buy and piss at the same time.
I sailed during the '50s, so drinking at any time wasn't a problem. Spain for 2 yrs.
Heaven,* before every yobbo from all over Europe & the UK ruined it.That was after my time tho'.
Did a 9mth. trip in '59, with 6 wks. on the OZ coast, from Brisbane to Adelaide. The 'old man' was tetotal, so it was a dry ship, so you can imagine the beeline we made to the nearest Pub, With the heat,(Feb, 3rd.) about 110 deg. & the airconditioning,& ice-cold beer, after 4, I remember nothing.I woke up next morning, ship sailed, so I figured I'd stay. My cash ran out after a week, so I gave myself up & they flew me to join her in Sydney.
I had a ball. This leads to the gist of my story.(Did I hear thank Christ) Around this time the Pubs started opening 'til 10pm. Before this they closed at six. All the tables and chairs were piled on one side,& at 5 sharp all the guys piled in, from the door to the bar. The barmaids lined up maybe 50 glasses each, & used garden type hoses to fill 'em. The mugs were passed over head, & the money passed back. How the hell they kept track is beyond me..
Now, evryone was used to 5 o'clock closing, so they drank accordingly. At 5.55pm they ordered their take out, in paper bags. At 6 they left. Some made it home I guess. Some flked out when the heat hit 'em. What amazed me was the Cops, just left 'em there.
The guts that couldn't see the clock, knew the new closing times, or whatever, carried on drinking at te same pace. The hardiest ones lasted 'til 7pm. then it was curtains for them.
This story is not to make fun, or otherwise liken them to Pommie Yobboes. It's a piece of your history.
In '60, I came to Canada. More weird laws. Couldn't stand up to drink, when you ordered a draft, they brought two. You had t take them,it was the custom/
Toronto was the deadest city I'd ever seen. Not now. Anything you want, they've got it.
A laughable thing. To my total surprise,yeah right, in 1980 I had to quit drinking. Yep, an Alcoholic.
Strange World innit?
Johnny
Feb 2nd 2005, 6:21 am
#7
Joined: Mar 2004
Location: pacific pines
Posts: 4,418
Re: Poms face alcohol challenge
Originally Posted by renth
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12123234-2,00.html
Poms face alcohol challenge
WITH Jason Donovan starring in the stage version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in London's West End, you would think the English would have finally dropped the cheap gibes at our cultural heritage.
Puzzlingly, this is not the case. The reputation we enjoy remains pretty much the same as when Barrington Bradman Bing Mackenzie landed at Heathrow in the 1970s and had his ice-cold tubes flogged from his Qantas bag by a Pommy bastard in customs.
There is little point arguing with the English, or indeed anyone, about our reputation for being big drinkers - especially when you're as drunk as we often are.
But the English are having their own messy little battle with drink, a political one, which has become one of the most hotly-debated topics in the UK.
From next month, the Blair Government plans to deregulate drinking hours so pubs can choose their own closing time.
Advertisement:
At present, all pubs must close at 11pm, every night of the week - unless you go to an eardrum-piercing nightclub or a swish bar where the cover charge can run to more than $20 - and even then they often call last drinks the instant you buy your first.
You really have to hit the ground running if you're going to do a proper number on yourself by 11pm. Which is precisely what happens.
If the world's binge drinkers were put through a time-and-motion study, the English would win hands down.
They have achieved world best practice at the art of getting blind drunk, fast.
There's never any dithering on the way to the pub. In a shout, no one says I'll sit on this one. As 11pm nears, rounds of beer expand to include shots of tequila or vodka, drunk purely for their alcohol content.
The dreaded words "time, please" trigger the type of scenes normally associated with Pamplona. And the last train home is a sight to behold, its stop-start motion turning the carriage floor into a Jackson Pollack canvas while a cross-eyed fellow next to you playfully inserts a kebab in your ear.
One of the biggest chains of pubs (many of them are franchises) is the Slug and Lettuce, known evocatively as The Slut and Legless, for the young, binge-drinking crowd it attracts.
It's the exact opposite of Australia where, apart from Good Friday and Christmas, and unless that pinot noir enthusiast Bob Carr gets his way, we live with the unspoken reassurance that, somewhere, alcohol can be readily had. Here there's a sense of genuine panic that you're going to miss out.
In advocating deregulation, Tony Blair and his ministers have spoken of a desire to create a continental culture, pointing to mainland European nations where wine and aperitifs are accompaniments to tapas, impassioned group song and intellectual chat.
A noble sentiment, but one which Britons are quick to rubbish. The most striking thing about the 11pm rule is that many people, especially the young, avoid going to restaurants because it eats into valuable drinking time.
There is nothing like the Australian culture of starting the night at a pub and then going to a restaurant.
Blair's logic is deregulation will end the bingeing by giving people flexibility and choice. His many critics say it will only get worse, and that the binge will extend into the small hours.
The English are remarkably self-critical in their opposition to the reform. Newspapers, especially The Daily Mail which, with its coverage of drink, crime and immigration appears convinced that the world is about to end, have devoted page after page to photo spreads of women passed out, legs akimbo, on footpaths, drunken louts snotting each other, people chundering all over themselves, under banner headlines such as YOB BRITAIN.
It is reported as if it's a cultural weakness, almost a genetic disorder, on the part of the English.
Certainly, it's hard to imagine Harry the Bastard from the Millwall Supporters Club finishing another successful night of mayhem on the terraces by popping out for a chardonnay and some grissini sticks.
Blair and, officially, the police, although the force seems divided on the question, insist that whatever initial bingeing happens next month will soon dissipate, as drinkers learn to live with the flexible new laws.
His case hasn't been helped by revelations the Government sexed down a report by health bureaucrats predicting that alcohol-related hospital admissions, already costing the National Health Service $4.5 billion a year, could soar further.
But it is impossible to see how the problem could get any worse.
Public anxiety about the existing level of alcohol-related violence, injury and illness is already off the scale. If things did indeed get worse, the current coverage suggests Britain would be unlivable.
It's a sobering thought for our legislators. While an argument can be made that drinking games and promotions should be banned from our pubs, it would be interesting if Australia, as some have argued, looked at re-regulating drinking hours.
For, if the papers here are to be believed, the regulated Brits have a much more serious issue with grog-fuelled violence than the deregulated Aussies.
Heaven forbid. We might become a nation of high-speed bingers, losing our reputation for drinking sensibly in eight different locations for 23 hours over the course of two days.
Poms face alcohol challenge
WITH Jason Donovan starring in the stage version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in London's West End, you would think the English would have finally dropped the cheap gibes at our cultural heritage.
Puzzlingly, this is not the case. The reputation we enjoy remains pretty much the same as when Barrington Bradman Bing Mackenzie landed at Heathrow in the 1970s and had his ice-cold tubes flogged from his Qantas bag by a Pommy bastard in customs.
There is little point arguing with the English, or indeed anyone, about our reputation for being big drinkers - especially when you're as drunk as we often are.
But the English are having their own messy little battle with drink, a political one, which has become one of the most hotly-debated topics in the UK.
From next month, the Blair Government plans to deregulate drinking hours so pubs can choose their own closing time.
Advertisement:
At present, all pubs must close at 11pm, every night of the week - unless you go to an eardrum-piercing nightclub or a swish bar where the cover charge can run to more than $20 - and even then they often call last drinks the instant you buy your first.
You really have to hit the ground running if you're going to do a proper number on yourself by 11pm. Which is precisely what happens.
If the world's binge drinkers were put through a time-and-motion study, the English would win hands down.
They have achieved world best practice at the art of getting blind drunk, fast.
There's never any dithering on the way to the pub. In a shout, no one says I'll sit on this one. As 11pm nears, rounds of beer expand to include shots of tequila or vodka, drunk purely for their alcohol content.
The dreaded words "time, please" trigger the type of scenes normally associated with Pamplona. And the last train home is a sight to behold, its stop-start motion turning the carriage floor into a Jackson Pollack canvas while a cross-eyed fellow next to you playfully inserts a kebab in your ear.
One of the biggest chains of pubs (many of them are franchises) is the Slug and Lettuce, known evocatively as The Slut and Legless, for the young, binge-drinking crowd it attracts.
It's the exact opposite of Australia where, apart from Good Friday and Christmas, and unless that pinot noir enthusiast Bob Carr gets his way, we live with the unspoken reassurance that, somewhere, alcohol can be readily had. Here there's a sense of genuine panic that you're going to miss out.
In advocating deregulation, Tony Blair and his ministers have spoken of a desire to create a continental culture, pointing to mainland European nations where wine and aperitifs are accompaniments to tapas, impassioned group song and intellectual chat.
A noble sentiment, but one which Britons are quick to rubbish. The most striking thing about the 11pm rule is that many people, especially the young, avoid going to restaurants because it eats into valuable drinking time.
There is nothing like the Australian culture of starting the night at a pub and then going to a restaurant.
Blair's logic is deregulation will end the bingeing by giving people flexibility and choice. His many critics say it will only get worse, and that the binge will extend into the small hours.
The English are remarkably self-critical in their opposition to the reform. Newspapers, especially The Daily Mail which, with its coverage of drink, crime and immigration appears convinced that the world is about to end, have devoted page after page to photo spreads of women passed out, legs akimbo, on footpaths, drunken louts snotting each other, people chundering all over themselves, under banner headlines such as YOB BRITAIN.
It is reported as if it's a cultural weakness, almost a genetic disorder, on the part of the English.
Certainly, it's hard to imagine Harry the Bastard from the Millwall Supporters Club finishing another successful night of mayhem on the terraces by popping out for a chardonnay and some grissini sticks.
Blair and, officially, the police, although the force seems divided on the question, insist that whatever initial bingeing happens next month will soon dissipate, as drinkers learn to live with the flexible new laws.
His case hasn't been helped by revelations the Government sexed down a report by health bureaucrats predicting that alcohol-related hospital admissions, already costing the National Health Service $4.5 billion a year, could soar further.
But it is impossible to see how the problem could get any worse.
Public anxiety about the existing level of alcohol-related violence, injury and illness is already off the scale. If things did indeed get worse, the current coverage suggests Britain would be unlivable.
It's a sobering thought for our legislators. While an argument can be made that drinking games and promotions should be banned from our pubs, it would be interesting if Australia, as some have argued, looked at re-regulating drinking hours.
For, if the papers here are to be believed, the regulated Brits have a much more serious issue with grog-fuelled violence than the deregulated Aussies.
Heaven forbid. We might become a nation of high-speed bingers, losing our reputation for drinking sensibly in eight different locations for 23 hours over the course of two days.
Feb 2nd 2005, 7:17 am
#8
Forum Regular
Joined: May 2004
Location: Was Reading Berks. Now Palm Beach (summer bay), Sydney NSW
Posts: 125
Re: Poms face alcohol challenge
Don't know what you mean Renth. Must have picked up some of the Australian traditions already. Many a time been out with the lads and gone to a restaraunt for a ruby(curry) after closing time. Thought this was a English tradition,to savour our national dish after closing!!!
Feb 2nd 2005, 8:52 am
#9
Here at last
Joined: Nov 2004
Location: Now here in sunny Sandy Beach, near Coffs Harbour, N.S.W.)
Posts: 774
Re: Poms face alcohol challenge
Having spent the vast majority of my time in the Army abroad, I have seen both sides of the argument on de-regulating licensing laws.
In Germany the culture is to go out later, usually 21:30. There is not the mad rush to get legless before closing time because when one bar shuts there is usually another one open next door - I'm sure most of them have an un-written agreement to stagger closing times.
As most people will know from the one day a year when the suns comes out here in Blighty and someone has an all day BBQ the drink flows all day but there's not the same chaos at the end as most people just drink steadily all day.
In time peoples habits will change when they realize that they don't need to rush for last orders.
Off course there will always be those that go out get legless and fall asleep in a bar and then wake up and start again - been there, done that!!
In Germany the culture is to go out later, usually 21:30. There is not the mad rush to get legless before closing time because when one bar shuts there is usually another one open next door - I'm sure most of them have an un-written agreement to stagger closing times.
As most people will know from the one day a year when the suns comes out here in Blighty and someone has an all day BBQ the drink flows all day but there's not the same chaos at the end as most people just drink steadily all day.
In time peoples habits will change when they realize that they don't need to rush for last orders.
Off course there will always be those that go out get legless and fall asleep in a bar and then wake up and start again - been there, done that!!
Feb 2nd 2005, 11:27 am
#10
ah-beng
Joined: Aug 2004
Location: ^.^
Posts: 3,113
Re: Poms face alcohol challenge
The way that is written is the funniest thing... thats a national daily newspaper "slut + legless" 'Pommy bastard' hehehehe can't imagine that making it past the Times proof readers for the broadsheet in UK.
Feb 2nd 2005, 12:48 pm
#11
Proudly Deplorable
Joined: May 2003
Location: Alloha snack bar
Posts: 24,246
Re: Poms face alcohol challenge
Originally Posted by renth
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12123234-2,00.html
Poms face alcohol challenge
WITH Jason Donovan starring in the stage version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in London's West End, you would think the English would have finally dropped the cheap gibes at our cultural heritage.
Puzzlingly, this is not the case. The reputation we enjoy remains pretty much the same as when Barrington Bradman Bing Mackenzie landed at Heathrow in the 1970s and had his ice-cold tubes flogged from his Qantas bag by a Pommy bastard in customs.
There is little point arguing with the English, or indeed anyone, about our reputation for being big drinkers - especially when you're as drunk as we often are.
But the English are having their own messy little battle with drink, a political one, which has become one of the most hotly-debated topics in the UK.
From next month, the Blair Government plans to deregulate drinking hours so pubs can choose their own closing time.
Advertisement:
At present, all pubs must close at 11pm, every night of the week - unless you go to an eardrum-piercing nightclub or a swish bar where the cover charge can run to more than $20 - and even then they often call last drinks the instant you buy your first.
You really have to hit the ground running if you're going to do a proper number on yourself by 11pm. Which is precisely what happens.
If the world's binge drinkers were put through a time-and-motion study, the English would win hands down.
They have achieved world best practice at the art of getting blind drunk, fast.
There's never any dithering on the way to the pub. In a shout, no one says I'll sit on this one. As 11pm nears, rounds of beer expand to include shots of tequila or vodka, drunk purely for their alcohol content.
The dreaded words "time, please" trigger the type of scenes normally associated with Pamplona. And the last train home is a sight to behold, its stop-start motion turning the carriage floor into a Jackson Pollack canvas while a cross-eyed fellow next to you playfully inserts a kebab in your ear.
One of the biggest chains of pubs (many of them are franchises) is the Slug and Lettuce, known evocatively as The Slut and Legless, for the young, binge-drinking crowd it attracts.
It's the exact opposite of Australia where, apart from Good Friday and Christmas, and unless that pinot noir enthusiast Bob Carr gets his way, we live with the unspoken reassurance that, somewhere, alcohol can be readily had. Here there's a sense of genuine panic that you're going to miss out.
In advocating deregulation, Tony Blair and his ministers have spoken of a desire to create a continental culture, pointing to mainland European nations where wine and aperitifs are accompaniments to tapas, impassioned group song and intellectual chat.
A noble sentiment, but one which Britons are quick to rubbish. The most striking thing about the 11pm rule is that many people, especially the young, avoid going to restaurants because it eats into valuable drinking time.
There is nothing like the Australian culture of starting the night at a pub and then going to a restaurant.
Blair's logic is deregulation will end the bingeing by giving people flexibility and choice. His many critics say it will only get worse, and that the binge will extend into the small hours.
The English are remarkably self-critical in their opposition to the reform. Newspapers, especially The Daily Mail which, with its coverage of drink, crime and immigration appears convinced that the world is about to end, have devoted page after page to photo spreads of women passed out, legs akimbo, on footpaths, drunken louts snotting each other, people chundering all over themselves, under banner headlines such as YOB BRITAIN.
It is reported as if it's a cultural weakness, almost a genetic disorder, on the part of the English.
Certainly, it's hard to imagine Harry the Bastard from the Millwall Supporters Club finishing another successful night of mayhem on the terraces by popping out for a chardonnay and some grissini sticks.
Blair and, officially, the police, although the force seems divided on the question, insist that whatever initial bingeing happens next month will soon dissipate, as drinkers learn to live with the flexible new laws.
His case hasn't been helped by revelations the Government sexed down a report by health bureaucrats predicting that alcohol-related hospital admissions, already costing the National Health Service $4.5 billion a year, could soar further.
But it is impossible to see how the problem could get any worse.
Public anxiety about the existing level of alcohol-related violence, injury and illness is already off the scale. If things did indeed get worse, the current coverage suggests Britain would be unlivable.
It's a sobering thought for our legislators. While an argument can be made that drinking games and promotions should be banned from our pubs, it would be interesting if Australia, as some have argued, looked at re-regulating drinking hours.
For, if the papers here are to be believed, the regulated Brits have a much more serious issue with grog-fuelled violence than the deregulated Aussies.
Heaven forbid. We might become a nation of high-speed bingers, losing our reputation for drinking sensibly in eight different locations for 23 hours over the course of two days.
Poms face alcohol challenge
WITH Jason Donovan starring in the stage version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in London's West End, you would think the English would have finally dropped the cheap gibes at our cultural heritage.
Puzzlingly, this is not the case. The reputation we enjoy remains pretty much the same as when Barrington Bradman Bing Mackenzie landed at Heathrow in the 1970s and had his ice-cold tubes flogged from his Qantas bag by a Pommy bastard in customs.
There is little point arguing with the English, or indeed anyone, about our reputation for being big drinkers - especially when you're as drunk as we often are.
But the English are having their own messy little battle with drink, a political one, which has become one of the most hotly-debated topics in the UK.
From next month, the Blair Government plans to deregulate drinking hours so pubs can choose their own closing time.
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At present, all pubs must close at 11pm, every night of the week - unless you go to an eardrum-piercing nightclub or a swish bar where the cover charge can run to more than $20 - and even then they often call last drinks the instant you buy your first.
You really have to hit the ground running if you're going to do a proper number on yourself by 11pm. Which is precisely what happens.
If the world's binge drinkers were put through a time-and-motion study, the English would win hands down.
They have achieved world best practice at the art of getting blind drunk, fast.
There's never any dithering on the way to the pub. In a shout, no one says I'll sit on this one. As 11pm nears, rounds of beer expand to include shots of tequila or vodka, drunk purely for their alcohol content.
The dreaded words "time, please" trigger the type of scenes normally associated with Pamplona. And the last train home is a sight to behold, its stop-start motion turning the carriage floor into a Jackson Pollack canvas while a cross-eyed fellow next to you playfully inserts a kebab in your ear.
One of the biggest chains of pubs (many of them are franchises) is the Slug and Lettuce, known evocatively as The Slut and Legless, for the young, binge-drinking crowd it attracts.
It's the exact opposite of Australia where, apart from Good Friday and Christmas, and unless that pinot noir enthusiast Bob Carr gets his way, we live with the unspoken reassurance that, somewhere, alcohol can be readily had. Here there's a sense of genuine panic that you're going to miss out.
In advocating deregulation, Tony Blair and his ministers have spoken of a desire to create a continental culture, pointing to mainland European nations where wine and aperitifs are accompaniments to tapas, impassioned group song and intellectual chat.
A noble sentiment, but one which Britons are quick to rubbish. The most striking thing about the 11pm rule is that many people, especially the young, avoid going to restaurants because it eats into valuable drinking time.
There is nothing like the Australian culture of starting the night at a pub and then going to a restaurant.
Blair's logic is deregulation will end the bingeing by giving people flexibility and choice. His many critics say it will only get worse, and that the binge will extend into the small hours.
The English are remarkably self-critical in their opposition to the reform. Newspapers, especially The Daily Mail which, with its coverage of drink, crime and immigration appears convinced that the world is about to end, have devoted page after page to photo spreads of women passed out, legs akimbo, on footpaths, drunken louts snotting each other, people chundering all over themselves, under banner headlines such as YOB BRITAIN.
It is reported as if it's a cultural weakness, almost a genetic disorder, on the part of the English.
Certainly, it's hard to imagine Harry the Bastard from the Millwall Supporters Club finishing another successful night of mayhem on the terraces by popping out for a chardonnay and some grissini sticks.
Blair and, officially, the police, although the force seems divided on the question, insist that whatever initial bingeing happens next month will soon dissipate, as drinkers learn to live with the flexible new laws.
His case hasn't been helped by revelations the Government sexed down a report by health bureaucrats predicting that alcohol-related hospital admissions, already costing the National Health Service $4.5 billion a year, could soar further.
But it is impossible to see how the problem could get any worse.
Public anxiety about the existing level of alcohol-related violence, injury and illness is already off the scale. If things did indeed get worse, the current coverage suggests Britain would be unlivable.
It's a sobering thought for our legislators. While an argument can be made that drinking games and promotions should be banned from our pubs, it would be interesting if Australia, as some have argued, looked at re-regulating drinking hours.
For, if the papers here are to be believed, the regulated Brits have a much more serious issue with grog-fuelled violence than the deregulated Aussies.
Heaven forbid. We might become a nation of high-speed bingers, losing our reputation for drinking sensibly in eight different locations for 23 hours over the course of two days.
