|
It has been interesting to hear government ministers justify the new 24 hour drinking law on the basis that it’s intended to reduce Saturday night punch ups, binge drinking and a whole range of other social problems. As with the
90-day detention without trial controversy, they have wheeled out policemen who agree with them. Do you?
I fear that the evidence that I see indicates a major flaw in this theory and is it really a coincidence that one of the few pubs to have its extended hours licence refused was The Red Lion near Downing Street, on the grounds of “public nuisance” and “public safety”? So, does Mr Blair really believe it either or have the brewing lobbyists got to him?
Any alert visitor to Barcelona will notice the drinking culture here. In the British sense there isn’t one, young Spanish people don’t go out boozing as an activity in itself. A lads’ night out may well mean doing the clubs – and there are certainly world class night clubs here to which people travel from all over Europe – but heavy drinking is not part of the action. One or two beers will suffice, or for a special occasion and to be really cool, a whiskey. Even those on an all-nighter will not end it drunk. They are more likely to go to someone’s apartment and make some food and talk.
If habits are changing here at all it is in the use of soft drugs. A young Spaniard is much more likely to smoke cannabis than get drunk and there have been reports of a few weekend hospital admissions due to ecstasy taken with either alcohol or insufficient water. That is not to say it is widespread but it is inevitable that the global village will increasingly share
behavioural habits and the young are the front line there. Attitudes to cannabis are also different here. For example, special compost for cannabis growing is stacked alongside all the rest in my local garden centre. It could be argued that any substance that makes people mellow rather than aggressive is preferable and the evidence suggests that Spaniards agree.
Well then that means Mr Blair is right doesn’t it? Replicate the licensing laws and you’ll replicate the way people behave. As with much of continental Europe, alcohol is freely available most of the day or night in Spain and the UK should follow suit and so remove the need to get three more pints down your neck before 11 o’clock and the landlord calls time. I heard government spokesmen on BBC radio saying pretty much exactly that last week but can they offer any evidence to support it?
I very much doubt it for one very simple reason. Drinking for drinking’s sake, drinking to get drunk is simply not part of the culture here, or in most of Europe. It matters not that booze is or is not available, it simply isn’t wanted. The three pints would not be required irrespective of imminent bar closure.
Normal behaviour here is to drink wine with food but even then, and especially over lunch, most will drink water and little or no wine. In fact lunchtime set menus usually include wine and even when it’s free the locals will quite often drink water instead and ironically the younger they are the more likely that the wine will be eschewed.
A typical night out for the twenty to thirty-something Catalans will involve dinner somewhere first, probably starting around10pm - and it doesn’t have to be fancy or expensive, eating out is perfectly normal for all social groups here – followed by clubbing perhaps but with little alcohol.
As for girls going out to get legless, that would not be accepted lightly. It would be “malvisto”- badly seen - and the social standing of those involved would not be enhanced. That is not to say these people are inhibited, far from it, they know how to have a good time, and I have been taken to some wonderful late night places that defy a short description, but getting drunk isn’t part of the deal. It simply isn’t in the culture in the first place and therein lays the problem for Mr Blair’s theory. Too many Brits equate a good time with getting bladdered.
At my oldest and fogeyest I find myself taken aback by young British people discussing the plan for getting as drunk as a skunk in advance. Will it be Vodka? How do the various hangovers compare? Is red or white wine the best thing to get completely slaughtered on?
Neither I, nor anyone I know here, has ever heard a similar discussion among young Catalans or Spanish. Drinking may be creeping in but in a modest way. Groups of youngsters are increasingly having a “botellon”- a big
bottle - in the town or village square. It began for economic reasons and teenagers buy a beer or two and gather in the Plaza to talk, flirt and drink. It has produced complaints from residents due to noisy chatter but it’s pretty innocent low-key stuff by comparison to the mayhem screened all too frequently on a Saturday night in the UK.
Sadly the British have a reputation here and it isn’t a good one. Not that a visitor will encounter the slightest animosity from the local population. They are extraordinarily tolerant.
However, visitors from Britain are often only too identifiable. A walk down Las Ramblas will reveal a café table of young men wearing inappropriate clothing and with vast glasses of beer before them. If I venture onto the Ramblas it is usually before 11 am and even a visit as early as 9 will have it’s beer drinking group and most likely they’ll be loud and British.
I witnessed a conga line of lads last year, joined together by toilet seat collars, dancing and yelling their way along the street. They were British and not sober. The looks from the local population said it all and it was a weekday mid afternoon as well. Maybe I’m a party pooper but my point is that the equation of booze with a good time is firmly fixed in the British psyche and I can’t see altering licensing hours changing that.
This is not a Spanish only phenomenon either as anyone who’s spent a New Year’s Eve in France will tell you. It is celebrated with gusto but not drunkenness.
Perhaps an Italian story illustrates the point best. About 20 years ago I was eating in a Roman restaurant on New Year’s Eve. It was full of locals celebrating the New Year and the place had a great party atmosphere. Having been engaged in conversation by the group on the next table my partner and I were subsequently invited to join them at home to celebrate the changing of the year, which we happily did.
It was a delightful and spontaneous event with much of what you would expect a New Year party to be with music and dancing and coffee! At one point I found the host standing on a chair and looking in a cupboard saying to his wife, “Where’s the whiskey, we must have some alcohol for the English”.
At midnight a single bottle of sparkling wine was opened, for the 20 or so people present, simply to have a toast for the New Year. It was served in paper espresso cups the size of a large thimble, midnight was toasted and the dancing continued. We were subsequently driven home by our gracious and very sober host.
Somehow, I don’t imagine that changing licensing laws will replicate that attitude to alcohol whatever Mr Blair may say.
Back
to Journalism Page
|