Let's face it, there aren't enough opportunities in York to consume alcohol. Watching a film, for example, denies the drinker the chance to knock back the sauce for two long hours.

But now, thanks to the pioneering work at York City Screen, that may all change.

Soon we should be able to get pie-eyed at the pictures in peace.

The Coney Street cinema wants filmgoers to hang on to their drinks when they take their seats.

Sounds very civilised, doesn't it?

Just imagine sipping a Chardonnay as cold and dry as the vision of post-modern Uzbekistan on the art house screen above you.

The City Screen's 'booze-as-you-view' proposal has police approval so it may well find favour among licensing magistrates tomorrow.

Theatre managers should plot an alcohol-inspired film festival to celebrate.

Among the City Screen back catalogue are such thirst-quenching titles as Onegin and A Clockwork Vodka-And-Orange. Stir in Cocktail, Shampoo, Barfly and Spring And Port Wine, and the punters will lap it up.

Then hit 'em with a salutary lesson in the dangers of liquor, with films such as The Big Hangover (1950), The Curse of Drink (1922) and WC Fields' The Fatal Glass Of Beer (1933).

Allowing film buffs to wet their whistle while they watch is one small step along the road to York's cherished goal: civilised drinking.

However, the transition may not be a smooth one. The hazards of imbibing in a cinema are all too easy to visualise.

For a start, it's dark in there. The chances of tipping half your tipple over the lap of another as you squeeze your way to your seat must be high.

And if a load of beer drinkers are in, the number of torch-lit toilet trips will increase to vexing proportions.

Then there's the noise. Already the loud munching of popcorn or unwrapping of sweets is enough to drive the purist to distraction.

Think how much worse would it be to neighbour a slurper. Or, grimmer still, to sit near a couple of wine bores noisily discussing the vintage of their gargle.

In the face of such torments it would be tempting to down one too many. Alas, this would be ruinous, both physically and financially.

Remember, you need to focus if you're to read those blessed subtitles.

And, going by the price of a small Coke in most cinemas, it would cost an arm and a leg to get legless at the flicks.

If you spent the week potholing on Rarotonga, you may have missed the shock news: Prince William has cleaned a toilet. This is not an unusual occupation for an 18-year-old, particularly if he overindulged at the cinema the night before and is paying the parental penance.

But two factors deemed this particular loo brush-up to be major news: firstly, the toilet was in Patagonia; and secondly, the cleaner is the next king.

William is spending part of his year out as a volunteer with Raleigh International.

This is bound to be a positive experience, as it has been for thousands of enterprising young people before him.

But does it really deserve so many pages of gushing newsprint and a television documentary?

Of course not.

The pictures of William doing his Ali G impression at the turntable, or grinning with a hand over his face, have been analysed to death by the papers' royal "experts".

Yet there is no great revelation here. They merely show that William is as photogenic as his mother - and he knows it. And that the tabloid newspapers still have a horrendous craving for stories about pretty young royals.

William and the press look made for each other.