I learn’d it in England, where indeed they are most potent at potting

The quote comes from Othello as Iago compares notes on the English

Time magazine has a habit of producing articles putting Britain in a bad light and this week there is another example.

It asks

What are the key components of Britishness? The bulldog spirit? A stiff upper lip? Or a penchant for Sex on the Beach? With Britain locked in an identity crisis (the English feel English, the Welsh, Welsh and some Scots are so eager to assert their Scottishness that they want to disunite the United Kingdom),

Yes it's the report on our latest export........ Boozing

According to the magazine,

Booze culture unites Britons from Land's End in southwestern England to John O'Groats at the northeastern tip of Scotland, and it's also one of the U.K.'s best-known exports. In sun spots such as Ibiza, Mallorca, the Canary Islands, Spain and Greece, English, Welsh and Scottish holidaymakers raucously intermingle, indistinguishable from each other in their bright leisure wear and brighter sunburns, downing alcoholic concoctions such as Sex on the Beach, sometimes as a prelude to the act itself.

The story of course hit the headlines earlier in the week in this country and the European Journal of Public Health and European Addiction Research report will be eagerly awaited in the next few months

But what is it that makes us so different from our neighbours?

Writing back in 2005, Ben Macintyre said

Somehow, in British history, we have failed to realise the distinction between inebriation, which occurs in all cultures, and drinking to the point of violence, illness and amnesia, night after night

But whether we drink to forget or to enjoy whether it's the fault of the licensing laws,the government or even the weather,it is a major problem in all seriousness