Birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim, etc.

It must be a slow news day over in Old Blighty, since they're basically reporting the extremely obvious:

Attempts to wean Britons away from binge drinking toward a more continental European "cafe style" culture may never work because too many like getting drunk, a cabinet minister said Sunday.

"I don't know whether we'll ever get to be in a European drinking culture, where you go out and have a single glass of wine," Labor Party chair Hazel Blears said.

"Maybe its our Anglo-Saxon mentality. We actually enjoy getting drunk," she told the Sunday Times newspaper in an interview.

People in the British Isles like getting drunk? Get out of here! Next, you'll be telling me that the French aren't noted for their military prowess.

Britain introduced extended drinking hours last November in a bid to tackle the country's binge drinking problem where people consumed large amounts of alcohol in a short space of time.

You can see where this is going...

Proponents of the changes to the licensing laws had argued it would usher in more civilized drinking habits like those of France or Spain.

But as pubs and clubs prepare for the second New Year's Eve under the new laws, there has been little sign that people are drinking more responsibly.

Uh-huh. People get more time to drink, and it just leads them to drink more. Who could've possibly forseen that outcome? Oh, right. Everybody.

Look, I'm all for the government butting out and letting people do what they want, but it's just kind of stupid to pretend to be shocked by people's very predictable behavior.