CAST your mind back to the first alcoholic drink that met your lips. It was completely utterly disgusting, wasn't it?

You had never tasted anything so revolting in your life. If it had been wine, then the sensation was that of chewing on a green sloe. Beer might have reminded you of the paracetamol tablet that's stuck on your tongue and can't be swallowed - and as for whisky, well.

Surely a phial of such poison must be deadlier than the hemlock which killed Socrates.

Of course, given time and perseverance, the taste veers from disgusting through vaguely palatable to rather nice indeed. But that was how it was when I was young. This is not the case nowadays, and it's because of the overwhelming worldwide power of the drinks industry.

The business decided to tap into the youth culture and the method of doing so was staring them in the face. Devise new drinks full of sugar and packaged in brightly coloured bottles. And the strategy worked.

The industry managed to capture an enormous market that had only just stopped guzzling Easter Eggs and sucking sherbet dabs. What the company chemists and promotion people had to do was come up with a product that had the same appeal, but was disguising the flavour of alcohol, which is a toxin.

Lo and behold, they succeeded. And the result of this alchemy and marketing is visible every weekend in town and cities like Worcester where drink-blitzed children can be observed out of their skulls on alcoholic liquid sweets, having been caught young by the drinks industry.

I'm glad drink was drink in my day. It meant you didn't indulge until you had gained that crucial year or two of maturity.

PUT OFFENDERS TO WORK

A MEMBER of Worcester's Layland dynasty has invited me to "join her on a boat with two men with grappling hooks". It sounds so exciting, Councillor Margaret - I'm already feeling like Russell Crowe, that doughty captain in Master and Commander.

Seriously, though, Margaret Layland has done sterling work in reducing the litter mountain that seems to be engulfing Worcester. She is one of the few people in the public eye who takes a hands-on approach to a problem. However, I would make a couple of points.

Her recent letter was in response to a suggestion I had made about the appalling state of the riverbed near Worcester bridge. Low rainfall during the summer had not only reduced the level of the Severn, but also caused the water to clear. And what a mess. Bottles, cones, trolleys and roadsigns cover the bed, a disgusting legacy of our who-gives-a-damn society.

Sadly, the answer to this problem - and that of litter generally - is not for well-intentioned volunteers to step forward. No, I'd like to see young offenders rounded up and put to work under the watchful eye of a former SAS sergeant.

An eight-hour day with fingers worked to the bone would soon sort it. And the litter.

HAUNTED BY FRIAR STREET

MIKE Foster's like an old dog with a bone concerning this Cathedral car park business. He's worried that we're going to end up with son of Friar Street whereby this frightful Alien-style creature will burst through the ground and eat Sidbury.

Mike is right to be fearful, given Worcester's past. And Mayor Aubrey Tarbuck is indeed being a trifle wide-eyed when he gives the impression that no mistakes could possibly be made.

Ahem. Have you ever looked at the Technical College or 60s Lychgate development, Mr Mayor?

Be that as it may, Worcester's MP is to be praised for his vigilance. Just one small question then, Mike. Would you pursue this issue with the same fervour if Worcester City Council was still being run by Labour?

SCRAP USELESS SPEED CAMS

YOU'VE got to admire the Worcester man who contested his speed camera fine.

I'm not in favour of speeding but he seemed to have a good case. Despite the failure of his appeal, there will undoubtedly be more centred on factors such as foliage growth and resulting lack of visibility.

However, cameras do not stop people driving too fast. They just prevent drivers from driving too fast near cameras.

Take Hylton Road, for example. Motorists observe the dreaded yellow birdbox and slow right down.

Once out of range, many drivers - especially of the baseball cap, booming "music" variety - then zoom away in a screech of tyres. The object of the exercise is therefore defeated.

So here's my solution. Scrap speed cameras and sack the entire staff of the quango that runs them. Then bring police officers back to the roads with the sole aim of nicking speeders.

It wouldn't be that popular, but anything's better than a machine being judge, jury ... and executioner.

ONE final point about breaking traffic laws. Walking home the other day, I was as astounded to see the driver of an articulated lorry negotiating the bend at the Tybridge Street lights happily chatting away into his mobile phone.

I wonder - will there one day to a machine to cope with this? Just a thought.