Single European Drunkard?

Plans to introduce a single harmonised booze policy hit an academic roadblock according to the Wine Information Council.

Experts told a meeting in Brussels that,

"Greek teenage girls drink almost three times less than their Danish counterparts; young Spanish consumers drink less alcohol, but more regularly than British youngsters, who drink in greater quantities, but less often".

Adrian Furnham, Professor of Psychology at University College, London told us,

"Pan-European policies are insufficiently sensitive to have a significant effect in different drinking cultures.
Furthermore, the literature suggests that the regulatory approach is simplistic, and sometimes counter-productive - punishing moderate drinkers and leaving problem drinkers unhelped."

"To be effective, solutions must be adjusted to local needs and cultural specificities" it said. "There is no single way to consume alcoholic beverages".

Of course nowhere else in Europe are transport plans explicitly organised by those in their cups, as GK Chesterton pointed out,

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road,
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire,
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread,
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.

I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,
And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;
But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed
To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,
The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.

His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run
Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?
The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,
But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.
God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear
The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.

My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,
Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,
But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,
And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;
For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,
Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.