How best to label a bottle of wine or beer to indicate the alcoholic strength of the contents therein has often been the subject of debate, more so in recent times as the NHS creaks under the cost of treating binge drinkers across the country.
It was highlighted again last week when the Tories' called for the strength of bottled alcoholic drinks to be shown in centilitres instead of alcoholic units.
Andrew Lansley, the shadow health bloke, said he wanted to encourage people to live healthier lives by providing them with "simple and correct information".
Knowing how strong a particular drink is obviously useful, both in the long term of a life of knocking back the hard stuff and, for example, when one is driving.
What I've found puzzling is why some drinks producer and brewers throw their arms up in horror whenever someone suggests spelling out just how robust the contents of a bottle are. Perhaps they think it smacks of Nanny State-ism.
Having a more unified system like the one the Tories propose could help matters, I suppose. But I wonder what difference it makes if the alcoholic strength is measured in units or centilitres? I mean, why centilitres exactly? Why not fluid ounces? Or inches?
The whole idea is to inform the consumer, right? So does any set of seemingly abstract numbers really do that? I think not.
So, having mulled over the issue this weekend - and being accompanied on my journey of discovery by a hangover the size of small seaside town - I reckon I have come up with a more informative alternative to units and centilitres.
Cartoons. Yep, that's right, cartoons. Little cartoons showing stick figures in various states of inebriation, accompanied by the number of bottles of that particular product a consumer would need to drink to get into such a state.
So for example you'd have a panel on the label showing '1x =' and your stick figure appearing to walk normally.
Then underneath maybe '4x =', which would have the little blighter staggering a bit. Beneath that you could have, say, '10x =' and the figure is shown bent double, throwing up in a bin.
Finally perhaps you'd see '20x =', with the figure in a horizontal position, being tended to by a medical team from one of those temporary 'booze clinics' you see in city centres at Christmas-time.
True, the number of bottles consumed in order to reach such differing states would need to be tailored to each type of drink, and of course everyone's bodies are different so such illustrations would only be a guide. But then that's all the current system of units is. A guide.
I think drinkers of whatever level of consumption would find my idea far more informative than trying to work out the effect of how many centilitres you're likely to be putting away in an evening's session. And it'd be fun too.
So come on, all you spirits, wine and beer producers. Give my 'stick man' labelling device thingy a go and watch those sales soar…