That's cuz you int never been to Blighty

that's true. It's the one thing that really frightens me about Ye Olde - sooooooooooo much temptation to just really throw down and drink. Not Cancun-vacation drinking, but really professional drinking. The World Cup of drinking, as it 'twere.

When they relaxed the restrictions on alcohol sales there was all this stuff in the press about how we'd somehow take on a more adult, more civilised, more...well, continental relationship with drink.

Hahahahaha. Ahh dear me.

Last time I went through halifax town on a weekend evening, there was a gang of teenagers straggling through the town centre, one of whom spent more time lay on the floor than actually walking.

They provided the chimp enclosure with an unending supply of cheap bananas and expected said chimps to exercise temperance and self-control :p

I count myself in that. Though I don't drink so much I do drink moe than is entirely healthy and worse still, I am a 'binge drinker', in that I will go periods without touching alcohol, then when I do I drink to excess. By excess I mean that I exceed healthy levels of alcohol. But I am considered by most of my friends to be a relatively light drinker.

Drinking is a massive part of British culture. Most adult hobbies involve meeting in pubs at some point. Caving or potholing, or climbing up a mountain in the crisp winter air? Well, that needs rounding off with a pub meal and plenty of ale. Member of a political party? Meet at the Working Men's Club/Labour Club/Conservative Club*/ function room above the Red Lion pub. Been Christmas shopping? Well then time for a slap up Christmas dinner at the Wetherspoons pub with free beer/glass of wine/Christmas cocktail or whatever the offer is that month.

Bad place for anybody who struggles to resist alcohol. Lots of people don't drink, for whatever reason. They don;t like it. They're pregnant. They're driving. They're muslims. But relatively easy for such people to interact with the drinkers happily (or for those whose faith prohibits it there's usually a parrallel non-drinking culture). For someone who struggles with it and therefore avoids being in that situation it can be incredibly isolating.


*member led drinking, pool-playing, darts throwing, light entertainment establishments, usually with large function rooms for hire to wedding parties etc and nominally (or more actively) associated with a political party or movement.

I've just recalled something. From when I was around 18 years old. I'd already moved in with my then boyfriend and had gone to visit my Dad. He took me to his regular pub and bought me a drink.

That was one of those moments when I knew I was an adult. Being bought a drink in a pub by a parent. That's a rite of passage.

It really is a stupid joke. Buy your beer, wine, or whatever on Sat, knowing you can't buy it on Sunday. It is really a non-issue.

The place that it does become an issue is with liquor by the drink or serving beer, etc, in bars or restaurants. Those that have areas that serve it on Sunday get more business than those places that can't serve it on Sunday, so it is really nothing more than economics.

It's not about the relationship with alcohol, it's about paying for the flood that happened 122 75 years ago (There were two floods in the same place, but we're only still paying for the second one).

That is, incidentally a completely accurate description of the Pennsylvania Booze Buying Experience, except you left out the part where you drive into Maryland, Delaware, or New Jersey with the intent of smuggling liquor back into the Commonwealth.

Downunda, bottle shops have one alcohol licence for all kinds of booze. Trading hours for pubs and bottle-ohs are limited by their licence, but I'm not a regular drinker and haven't had a problem with this.

As a result of drunken English munitions workers being blamed for a poor campaign in WWI, our pubs had to close at 6pm, which meant working men got there at 5.30 and drank like pigs for 30 minutes, pissed on the floor, staggered home and vomited on the wife. This arrangement lasted until the 1950s.

Now, Japan ...
Any kind of booze, 24/7, convenience shops, and they're everywhere. 2.7 liter bottles of Glenfiddich in the supermarket for about $50 (very low tax). Beer in vending machines. The drinking age is 18, though, so they put the beer (and cigarette) machines in well lit public places because teenagers would be too ashamed to be seen buying these things. This works. They're ... different.

Can't sign a contract on a Sunday here in pa or NJ. Thank fuck.

I don't even know if it's possible to drink more than Wisconsinites, mid-westerners in general are pretty bad.

I have known NJ car salesmen who would go to the dealership in case folks were wandering the lot on a Sunday, work towards getting the sale and closing it on Monday when they were allowed to sign contracts again.

It's one of the things that usually surprises American and other nationality visitors to our shores. Just how much a part of our culture drinking is, and just how much we drink when we do.

I liked eating in French Army mess halls where I was issued wine with dinner.

Well, they usualy provide wine when there are guests.

But during my mandatory year in the French Navy, we were limited to two beer bottles (8.5 oz each) per day and none if we were on duty.

Here, it is forbidden to sell alcohol and cigarettes to minors (ie: under 18). Most places are closed on Sunday and holidays but nothing religious to it, more like a habit. Not all but many pubs and bars are opened on those days. Depending on their licence, bars and nightclubs can be opened for a long time. I know a few pubs that operate from 6.30 AM to 2.00 AM and some places in and around Paris may be opened 24/7.

Obviously, you never met a English out on a binge. Or a Britton from France (ie: myself) either. Compared to some of my friends, I'm a very light drinker and I'm no choir boy. Some US citizens I met in Paris may even think of me as the Devil's own spawn given the size of the hangover they had in the morning.

Just as an aside, when I was at school in France we were issued a block of cheese automatically with lunch. At the time I found it revolting. I've wondered about it since, but I wrote in my diary that it tasted of nothing apart from dishwater. So I guess it was a local cheese that you had to get used to. I might even like it as an adult (I was 15) but I was a cheese lover even then.

On the same trip I was offered a glass of wine (with or without water) at least half the evening meals. Not when it was just me, the student and her mother, but if they had people over in my honour, or if we went to other houses in return. I was used to this because we were offered half glasses of wine at celebrations at home. One glass was just a ritual thing. I never felt any affect.

What I loved most was being a person of interest. At school, in strangers houses, in the tiny village shops. Everyone dug out their rusty (or better) English to speak to me. And I was treated as if I was 5 years older than my supposed host (student). They thought of me as quintessentially English because I wore skirts and was pale with red cheeks.

I was nauseous with homesickness to be honest.
But it was an extraordinary time.