Pubdate: Tue, 20 Jan 1998
Author: Tom Morton
Source: The Scotsman
Website: http://www.scotsman.com/
Contact: Letters_ts@scotsman.com

A CULTURE OF DEPRAVED DROUTHINESS

TOM MORTON on our love-hate relationship with licensing laws

THE longer the opening hours, the less crime, it would seem from recent
research in Edinburgh. But should we be surprised? Those who remember the
grim days of 10pm closing, and the consequent tidal wave of mayhem and
vomit-flecked violence of an average Friday, know that punitive pub
licensing leads to concentrated, high-speed slurping at the end of the
night. More extreme drunkenness, packed into a shorter time-span. And the
anti- social behaviour that inevitably brings.

And yet it is a truth universally acknowledged by the beetle- browed
members of licensing committees that young people are not permitted to have
fun in public, and preferably in private. Because fun leads inexorably to
Bad Things, like vandalism, kissing in doorways and indeed, loud beat music
played on electric guitars. As alcohol is usually conducive, at least in
moderation, to enjoyment in the unattached and/or youthful, consumption
must be rigidly controlled. Hence the ludicrous club curfews of recent
times, the jealous enactment of councillors' sorrow over their own lost or
wasted youth.

The Scottish obsession with licensing hours, though, is essentially a
bizarre hangover from the even more punitive days when mother's ruin was
perceived as just that, and the ha'penny gin a far greater social threat
than heroin is today. Scotland, a society which took masochistic Calvinism
from the Swiss and made it really hurt, is a place which likes to lash
itself with guilt, and render cravings unslakeable. Fuel that with a
genuine fear of alcohol's power to destroy lives, and the result is the
culture of depraved drouthiness.

There is still a kind of deadly longing for the days of dry areas which did
not end until the 1980s, when Kilsyth finally allowed the serving of
alcohol without the statutory three baked beans or half a sandwich to meet
legal requirements. And the more recent permitting of off-sales on Sundays
at last gets rid of the massive queues which used to stretch down the
corridors of one hotel in Glasgow, and out into the west end.

But why do we feel so angered by licensing hours, which, even at their most
draconian, are in reality no worse than other major European cities,
ostensibly more liberal and lax? For serious drinkers, there are
falling-over clubs in the likes of Milan where you can go to deal with your
habit, but the ordinary bars and bistros don't stay open 28 hours in 24.
Perhaps it is just that we like to drink a lot more than say, the camomile
tea and capuccino-fuelled Italians, who, on visiting Scotland, are
frequently aghast at the kind of industrial toping they encounter. And also
because, deep down, we want to be regimented, made to feel that there is
something sinful in what we are doing down the pub.

In reality, a little planning will ensure that there is always a bottle of
Cab Sauv back at the house, or indeed a case of Lagavulin. For those
desperate to cultivate the illicit thrill of social drinking, or for whom
dramming within the old homestead is tantamount to desecration, there are
private clubs, although nothing on the scale of London, where a man is not
a man, or a woman a lush, without access to the Groucho or something a
little more salubrious. Or indeed dubious, although that is hard to imagine.

But where is the pleasure in the lemming-like rush to the bar for last
orders, the suffocating crush through smoke, sweat, flesh and its various
secretions for some kind of unholy communion, sealed in spilt beer or
corked wine? Does it not appeal to our need to be part of the herd, and to
be herded?

Bars need not be this way, but our culture of consumption is unlikely to
change. Even in the most welcoming, stone-flagged, roaring-fire-equipped
rural bar, there will always be the risk of Young Farmers' social erupting,
complete with buttock-display and beer-throwing. Or worse, that horrific
symbol of male sexuality gone haywire, the pre-nuptial blackening, where
haplessly drunk grooms are tarred and tied. What must visitors from abroad
think? The pubs permit such events, as long as no- one wants a lock-in. Or
a soft drink.

Ah yes, the lock-in. Can you imagine a Frenchman taking delight in his
local bar's closing of its doors to all but terminal alcoholics, and then
illegally serving them with more poison? Luis Buuel, the surrealist
film-maker, wrote that nothing was more enjoyable in life than to sit in a
bar, nursing a drink, observing humanity.

He was Spanish, obviously, so in the cafe bars he was used to, not only
could you get a seat and sip a drink slowly without being accused of
wimpdom on a grand scale, but you could read, write and observe with
impunity. Plus humanity actually goes into Spanish bars. And remains
upright, or capable of getting up and walking.

The Scottish pub is not so much a haven of leisure and pleasure as a kind
of semi-official drug-den, where you go to get your fix. We demand
licensing laws to control our desires, to frustrate them, to prevent
ourselves getting out of hand. Without them, where would be? At home,
probably. Having a quiet drink, or 15. Certainly not fighting in the
streets.