Ha ha, My God you Americans are such namby pamby lightweights when it comes to drinking. It is a good job that you don't live here in the UK where drinking is part of the culture from a very young age.

It has taken sports managers years to convince players off the drink to assist their success. It used to be a badge of honour to stay out all Friday night drinking and then play and win the next day. The advent of foreign coaches has brought in diet and abstinence. Yep, we win more but we don't get the characters we used to, just automatons.

As a teen and a rugby player it was traditional after the game on a Saturday afternoon about 04.30pm onwards to fill a huge jug of beer and circulate it around the opposition to get rid of any aggression we felt. Often that would go on until the early hours, with singing and maybe heading on elsewhere. If you couldn't man up to the drinking games like Captain Blood, Spoof or Jacks you were a big pussy.

By the age of 20 I could easily drink 15 pints an evening and so could my pals.

These days it's just wine, but at 14% volume a bottle or two are not far off a larger number of beers at 5% per pint.

The whole nation here is craving for the pubs to re-open after Covid lockdowns. The pub here is the life and soul of many communities, it is the place where whole villages go for news, for quiz nights, or in other areas to sell hooky goods, or to watch sport on tv. They don't throw you out if you've had too many here, they'll prop you up in a corner, or help you home if you want to leave.

You wait, once we're through this Covid, the pubs won't be able to sell enough alcohol to keep up with the demand of a nation locked in.