EVERYBODY'S aware of the ever-rising cost of drinking. It's nothing short of a national scandal. For in pubs and clubs around the land, groaning men are to be witnessed grasping the bar-top for support as latest increases in the price of a pint are announced.

These increases seem ever to be gathering momentum and have driven many a veteran barfly into taking up home-brewing or cheerlessly combing supermarket shelves and bargain-booze outlets for cut-price cans.

Many of those addicted to sawdust-side company have severely curtailed their taproom habit, confining it to the final hour before the last bell clangs and towels go up.

Long-serving elbow-benders these day invariably make the escalating cost of being blessed with a mighty thirst their main topic of conversation. And so it was situation normal when I popped into a local workingmen's club the other day.

Eyes moist with emotion, the old-timers reminisced about the time when a pint of life-giving fluid cost just a fraction of today's price, which, at our more expensive venues, is nudging the two-quid mark.

One of the assembled 'mourners' produced a souvenir picture taken in a pub during an Isle of Man holiday break of the late 'fifties. There was nothing spectacular about it -- except for the price-list, posted prominently at the back of the bar.

Cop for this! Pale ale is listed at a tanner (2p) a bottle. A pinta is flagged up at less than a shilling, the equivalent of about 35 times cheaper than the current going price.

One ex-barmaid drifted into the woeful conversation to wind the clock further forward. As recently as 1967 she was serving up the amber nectar at one shilling and tenpence (about 8p in today's currency) with mild a couple of old pennies cheaper.

All of which produced the yedscatter of the night! None of the silver-threads gang could remember the year when the price of a pint crashed through the one-shilling barrier, though a couple opined that it was as recently as the 'seventies.

SO they've invited me to throw out the frothy puzzler to customers of this column. If you think you know the answer, please drop me a line.