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I have to say I'm as mystified as madhatter about the British attitude to drinking. Here in Northern Ireland the pubs stay open until 1am. The crowds on the sidewalks at 1:30am tend to disprove the theory that people will trickle home in manageable groups the longer you allow clubs to stay open. In fact, they're even more rowdy and violent then elsewhere because you've got people in there who've been drinking since 21:00.
Part of the problem here is the gradual evolution of pubs into pseudo-clubs that use all kinds of tactics to encourage more drinking (overly loud music so you can't talk, cheap promos and the like) and who then wash their hands of the responsibility once the patrons are out of the door. The French law that a restaurant or bar is responsible for their patron's actions if they allow them to drive drunk is an interesting solution to this issue, but not one that I think would go over well in this country, with it's knee-jerk reaction of screaming 'Nanny State!' at anything the government tries to do to solve some of the problems everyone's always moaning about.
Another part of the problem is the acceptance, in fact the expectation, that excessive alcohol consumption is required to have fun. Jack the Bodiless summed it up rather nicely: Every occasion here seems to require alcohol. Saying you don't want to get bladdered on the weekend marks you as a pariah or a religious nut. Look at the student targeted advertising: It continually reinforces the stereotype of the student as a drunken party animal. How can a fresher who has seen this advertising throughout their childhood not assume that this is the accepted manner for students to behave? One would like to believe that individuals are intelligent enough to realise that this behaviour will eventually harm them, but we are continuously proving the contrary. |
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