There are two effective ways for a society to avoid mass public drunkenness and disorder. One is to go down the Saudi route and apply draconian punishments to anyone caught drinking (and they need to be draconian and enforced: US prohibition failed for this reason); the other is to position alcohol as a perfectly normal part of life and not some kind of special, magical taboo.
It would be nice to live in a world where the [note: fictional, written by me for the purposes of this post] piece below was a representative sample of the London media. It’d be even nicer to live in a world where it was a representative sample of the Tehran media – but ‘getting your own house in order’ has become a cliche for a very good reason:
Our country is embroiled in a major diplomatic incident with a foreign power. Relations between us and the foreign power are poor, although have so far fallen short of outright war.
If you’re in the UK, you’ve doubtless been forwarded an email coupon to receive 40% off wine and champagne at the country’s largest off-license chain, Threshers.
If you’re like most of this site’s contributors, you’ve doubtless headed straight down to the nearest offy, loaded up on all the plonk you can carry, and are currently trying to read this article with one eye open and severely impaired comprehension.