WHEN Britain's licensing laws were relaxed it was confidently predicted that by removing the pressure to sup up fast the extended drinking time would spell the end for Britain's notorious "booze"culture.

Well, the term "booze" has certainly gone out of fashion. Instead, but not too different, we have "binge drinking", of which Britain is Europe's acknowledged capital. Where, 50 years ago, thousands of working men in every large town spent the whole evening down the pub, yet only a handful appeared disorderly on the street, today battalions of young people especially set out on weekend nights with the deliberate aim of getting drunk.

Other people, of course, are addicted to gambling. Yet, out of the blue recently came a Government Bill to relax the gaming laws. In contrast to the long-recognised need to overhaul our antiquated licensing laws, there has been no perceptible public pressure to liberalise gaming. But we are now about to get Las Vegas-style casinos with up to 1,250 "high-payout" machines.

Why? According to the market research group the Henley Centre, the Government stands to gain £400m in tax. The British Amusement Catering Trade Association predicts they will increase from 400,000 to 700,000.

Meanwhile, the Government spins the change as mirroring a shift in attitude from the 1960s, when, to quote a spokesman, "gambling was perceived as an evil that had to be controlled.'' What poppycock. Ushering in betting shops, bingo halls and, yes, casinos, it was the 1960s reforms that made gambling respectable.

The Government believes the expansion of gambling will create jobs without causing social harm. But the precedent of the licensing laws suggests the outcome could be different.

YEARS ago Frank Muir used an appearance on Parkinson largely to berate some hapless official with whom he was in dispute about an overhead cable near his home. Since Muir's vitriolic attack saved a chestnut tree threatened by the new cable, perhaps we should all be grateful to him.

But it struck me then, and still does, that Muir was out of order in using a forum to which he had, if you like, privileged access, to conduct what was essentially a private battle. And I have thesame feeling about entertainer Richard Digance poking fun on Countdown at a North Yorkshire policeman who misspelt "unnecessary" on a parking ticket.

Presumably Mr Digance has never misspelt a word. More to the point, illegal orthoughtless parking causes annoyance and/or danger. Perhaps like me, most people who received a parking ticket in circumstances like Mr Digance's, whose car created an obstruction in the Dales' village of East Witton while he attended a party, wouldn't want the world to know I had committed an offence that so often involves lack of consideration for others.

WHAT Little Englanders we are. Reports of the London Marathon concentrated chiefly not on the Kenyan winners of both events but the Brits who came tenth (women) and 12th (men). On the BBC's 10pm news, the men's winner, Evans Rutto, was shown tripping up near Tower Bridge but not crossing the winning line