Mark Daniels: An Englishman, Irish and Scotsman celebrated...

I haven't touched a good whisky since Christmas Eve 1997. Not, you understand, because I'm some secret Government agent with a vendetta against alcohol, but because I got made redundant on that day, went to a friend's house and proceeded to drown my sorrows.

It wasn't a pleasant evening. At one point I went outside for some fresh air and my then-girlfriend found me asleep on the pavement in just a t-shirt and jeans, in -3 degree temperatures.

On the walk home I left unpleasant gifts from Santa in most front lawns and, eventually, Ali got me in to our bed, where she put me in the recovery position, left me with a bucket and then went and slept in the spare room.

Merry Christmas.

As Christmas Day dawned I didn't feel too bad - until I tried to move. At which point, four million Oompa Loompas went to work on my head. And my stomach. We had to go to Ali's parents for Christmas lunch, a ninety mile drive away, and the journey took almost four hours as Ali stopped regularly to allow me to continue purging my body of whisky.

At one point I hid in the bushes of a car wash whilst I sorted myself out, only to find a lost driver wandering towards me in search of directions to an open petrol station. He regretted that decision...

It was a particularly unpleasant, messy Christmas, made worse by the fact that the prospective mother-in-law had put together one of the best Christmas lunches I've ever seen, and I couldn't eat it.

Ironically, none of this "binge drinking" took place in a pub, but in a private house consuming shop-bought alcohol...

I hadn't touched a drop of whisky since. Even the smell of it was off-putting. Until last Monday night, that was, when an impromptu crowd of locals came in to celebrate Burns' Night and proceeded to work their way through the selection of malts above the bar. Nervously, I ended up tasting one or two with them, and was pleasantly surprised to find that my body has finally got over its twelve year ordeal.

Inevitably, the conversation sauntered around to Robert Burns and on toward the next big excuse for a celebration: St Patrick's Day. Everybody was asking what the plans for that will be and if there'll be any special offers on Guinness.

"Isn't it amusing," I pondered, "how we like to celebrate the Scots and the Irish, but we so rarely celebrate the English."

Bemused for a second, the locals quickly caught on. "Gosh! Yes!" They cried, "we really should do something for St George's Day. Come on, Mark, what can we do?" And then, amazingly, "When is it?"

"May 4th!" Said one. "No," said another, "it's in June."

Surprisingly, only one person around the bar knew the date of St. George's Day: April 23rd.

Now, admittedly, George wasn't an Englishman and is Patron Saint of more countries and cities than beds Jordan has slept in, but he is the Patron Saint of England too and we English have developed a horrible tendency of not celebrating our own holidays for fear of offending other cultures preferring, instead, to put far more stock in to the events of other nations.

St. George's Day is a great reason for the Great British Pub, another icon of our country, to celebrate our nation, being English, and Dragon Slayers.

I know we've got to get through St Patrick's Day, St Valentine's Day - which also falls on the same day as the Chinese New Year - and Easter yet, but if we're going to celebrate everybody else's special days, let's bally well make sure we celebrate ours too!

Because we're worth it.