Enemy at the pub door

In the 50s the Commies were the enemy, in the 60s it was short skirts, in the 1970s it was the swearing punks, in the 80s it was the miners. Through the 90s there was only one baddie and that was Saddam Hussein. In the noughties smoking started off as being the Number One Social Evil Threat to Our Lives, now it is swally.

In Scotland the Scottish Government are attempting to:

- get teenagers voting at 16 rather that 18

- stop them buying drink until they're 21.

So you can get involved in the political process but have no way of drowning your sorrows at the sheer depressingly obvious nature of most of it. They're also keen to ban teenagers from tanning studios so you can't even cheer yourself up by livening up your peely wally skin tone with a boost.

Another wheeze the Government have thought up is to impose a system of minimum pricing for alcohol. If you own an off-licence, supermarket or pub with off sales this must be great news.

The intention is to stop people drinking too much. But in all the years I've been going out I can hardly remember a single occasion where someone has said "I don't want another drink, it's too expensive." (There have been tight barstools who won't put their hand in their pockets, but that's a different thing. They'll never say it's too dear, they'll just let everyone else buy them swally and then eff off home before it's their round.)

When faced with dearer swally people will still pay up. Who ever asks "How much is that pint of lager?" when at a bar before deciding if they want one?

One of the other factors in people ending up swallied out of their heids is the pace they drink at. You can drink cheap low-strength pishy lager but if you drink it fast enough it will have an effect all right.

Will the Scottish Government issue devices like pedometers, designed to be worn on your arm to monitor how quickly your elbow gets bent lifting the glass for each drink? It can only be a matter of time.