Are pop songs making us drink more?

15-Oct-2013 - Last updated on 16-Oct-2013 at 12:56 GMT

It was with great bemusement I read of the bizzare interpretation of advertising regulations in France, where the courts have decided it is illegal to publish photos of people enjoying a tipple (so it’s a bloody good job the French look so miserable most of the time then, as The Times pointed out).

So far Paris Match has been fined £25,000 for showing actress Scarlett Johansson in an ad for Moët & Chandon which apparently contravened advertising laws by “associating alcohol in a festive context.”

Perhaps even more absurdly, a recent advertising campaign for Bordeaux wine had to airbrush drinkers out of its posters after the French body for the prevention of alcohol addiction complained they were holding glasses with a “manifest impression of pleasure.”

Mon Dieu!

But it’s not just the French that are acting absurdly. Scientists at Liverpool’s John Moores University published a report last week, which stated that pop songs containing references to alcohol were encouraging young Brits to drink.

The alcoholic content of songs has more than doubled between 2001 and 2011, it said.

I haven’t read the report in full but it is clear even from this distance the total and utter pointlessness of that statistic, when during a similar time frame (2004 to 2012) total alcohol consumption in the UK fell by 16%, according to BBPA figures.

This figure, of course, was not stated in any of the media reports I saw.

Bemusing.