You know the story with alcohol. When we’re young, we’re carefree and foolish.We drink too much — sometimes way too much. Then we mature. Get married. Have a family. Become a grown-up.

Part of that growing-up process is leaving behind our old drinking habits. While in our student days we could knock back seven pints a night, as we mature we restrict ourselves to the odd glass of wine over dinner.

Right? Well, perhaps not quite, as the actor Gerard Depardieu demonstrated last week.

Witnesses claim the 62-year-old French box office star was inebriated when he relieved himself in the aisle of an international flight in front of fellow passengers last week.

Though Depardieu later insisted he had not been drinking — and is actually suffering from an on-going prostate problem — he has previously admitted to regularly consuming up to six bottles of wine a day, which is a huge tally by anyone’s standards.