What's a Binge these days?

I must admit that I have a problem with the alteration in the media mindset of what is a night on the tiles. According to the medical profession a binge is 4 pints or more in a evening. I'm not sure when the medical profession were called in to define a binge but while 4 pints or more may breach some medical barrier it is far from what most people would have viewed as a binge.

I'm not even clear why someone would bother to leave the car at home, get a taxi into somewhere to consume 3 pints over the course of 3/4 hours and then a taxi home. You're spending way more than 50% of your night's out money purely on transportation!

Also, I heard someone from the vintners association on the radio, Newstalk this morning talking about "the billions that is spent on urban transport" and who the rural sector is missing out. It might stun the guy from the vintners but there is far from billions being spent on the running of Dublin Bus or the LUAS and more significantly those services take in a lot of money to get as close as possible to covering their costs. Bus Eireann on the other hand has the bulk of unprofitable rural routes where the bus takes 4/5 pensioners into town for their shopping during the day. No harm in my view but we need some realism about the extent to which those living in an urban setting are already subsiding those living in rural areas.

I'm favourably disposed to doing something to prevent rural decline but falsely claiming that "Billions" are spent running some utopian urban public transport network that patently does not exist is not the way to go about getting people on your side.