Saw these two:
Public transport 'drink ban plan'
Teototalling Tony Blair's gov't is considering banning the consumption of liquor on all forms of public transport -- not just automobiles, but planes and trains too.
An excerpt:
It's Friday night in Helsinki, and the object of the exercise seems to be to get as drunk as possible.
Our escorts had already picked up one hopelessly smashed teenager, depositing him in the grim confines of what they call the "drunk tank", the biggest in Europe.
Lit by bright fluorescent tubes, the small cells smell of urine and stale sweat, with a toilet in one corner and a foam mattress on the floor.
Our teenager was like a puppet who had had his strings cut. Legs buckling, head dropping, he was moaning incoherently.
And he was quietly crying. You could see he had not planned on ending his night here, or in such a bad state.
I stopped in Helsinki on the way in and out of Russia in 1989. A pint back then was about eight bucks in Canuckistani funds.
However, while it was obvious even back then that the Finns liked their booze, compared to the Russians, they were Christian Temperance poster children.
In Russia and Ukraine, once the vodka bottle was opened, its cap was no longer needed.
But even under the pseudo fellowship of imbibing, there was a palpable desperate edge. But I guess societal collapses will do that to a person.