Furball, as much as I love the country I live in, the English attitude to alcohol is even more crazy or worse than that, downright dangerous.
People on the continent love a drink, but you don't see drunken thugs wandering down the streets.
To my mind, part of it is licensing laws, and part of it is this whole 'underage drinking' stigma (read forbidden fruit) we have here.
Central London on a Saturday night is just horrific because of this.
Ravs