We are sailing, we are sailing....

It's coming up to Christmas, and the booze-cruise business is booming. Readers of this blog (are there any?) will know that I am basically pro-Europe - not wildly so, but essentially because I do not see any sensible alternative. But there are aspects which drive you silly, and the disparity of taxation is one of them. I regularly holiday in Spain and the Canaries, and when I'm there I can buy a litre of brandy for half the cost of a standard 70cl bottle of exactly the same product here, and a litre of basic table wine for less than a quarter of the cost of a bottle here. The difference of course is the tax. So just where is this "Common Market"? It makes no sense.