One evening last week I went out for a few drinks with reporters on the Daily Mail. We toured a dozen pubs in London near the Mail offices and when chucking-out time came round we were all seriously sozzled.
Outside the last pub, we started to fight, throw up, shout and sing. We woke up the people living in the surrounding apartments. But we were not in the least contrite. As one Mail journo blasted in my ear: "Thish is fantashtic, but jus' wait till twenny-four openin' comesh in we'll jus' go on the piss all day an' all night."
I've made all that up. It didn't happen. But making things up is not entirely unheard of in the world of the tabloid press, especially when the new Licensing Act and alleged24-hour opening are involved.
Instead of going on a mythical bender with Mail reporters, I was in Germany for several days. When I returned I found that even in the serious media the main story was24-hour opening.
Not the continuing horrors in the wake of the tsunami, the inauguration of the American president or the deteriorating situation in Iraq, but the fact that England will go to hell in a handcart when every pub in the land opens all hours every day of the week.
It has become a media circus. Sensation builds on sensation. Distortion and downright lies feed on one another. Editors boot their reporters on to the streets to find even more horrific stories of binge drinking and how the situation will become far worse when the Dog & Duck lets Dan and Doris from Muckover Farm get stonkered every night.
Reasonable debate is impossible. Letters and emails to newspapers and radio stations arguing the case for licensing reform are neither published nor broadcast because nothing must interrupt the image of the end of civilised behaviour in this country if a few pubs open for a few additional hours a day.
The last evening of my trip to Germany was a revealing one. I went to a famous pub in the centre of Munster called Pinkus Muller. It brews its own beer and also serves delicious food. The place was packed with locals as well as a group of British squaddies based at nearby Osnabruck. Everyone had a rollicking good time but behaved impeccably.
The street where Pinkus Muller stands, Rosenplatz, has several other bars and I asked the manager what happened at night. "We close at 12," he said. "The other bars stay open later, usually until around 2pm."
There's never any trouble in the area, he added. It's not hard to see why. People are not under pressure to drink quickly and go home dead on 11. They drink slowly and leave the bars at different times. There is no risk of large crowds assembling in the street to fight and riot.
Munster is not alone. The same picture holds true for most European towns and cities. If a sense of perspective prevailed in the British media, it might be possible to divorce the issue of binge drinking from pub opening hours and recognise that licensing reform will lead to a more relaxed attitude and decrease unsocial behaviour.
Binge drinking is the result of too many licensed premises being squeezed into town and city centres. Local authorities are too quick to agree to new drinking outlets being opened in areas where there is already a sufficient supply of pubs.
Binge drinking is the result of young people being encouraged to drink to excess through offers for cheap alcohol. Binge drinking is the result of our society's inability to educate young people about the joys and pitfalls of alcohol.
If binge drinking is a uniquely British phenomenon then we needto follow the Continental method of allowing young people from anearly age to consume weak and watered-down wine and beer to appreciate the pleasures of drink consumed in sensiblequantities.
In short, we need some common sense to intrude into the current debate. Sadly, from the Daily Mail to the BBC Today programme, all the reporters are giddy not on alcohol but frenzy.