FROM KIRSTY WARK
Dear viewers,
I'm afraid this will be short - but I hope sweet - as I am going out to interview the Home Office minister, Hazel Blears, about the continuing row over the new drinking laws.
The legislation passed a couple of years ago to liberalise our drinking laws is now being so hedged it looks like the maze at Hampton Court.
The new laws start in only a few weeks, but the government's been on the receiving end of a barrage of criticism about the plans - from the police and local authorities to its own backbenchers. With anti-social behaviour as bad as it is, the argument goes, liberalised drinking is the last thing we need.
So today the government unveiled a list of proposals to address those criticisms: bars identified as contributing to drunkenness and disorder will be given two months to improve - before being forced to pay for extra policing. Licensed premises which cause antisocial behaviour will be identified as alcohol disorder zones.
The pubs or clubs would then have eight weeks to try to improve or face contributing to the costs of the extra policing required. There are also plans to create a new civil order to deal with persistent drunken behaviour along the 'three-strikes-and-you're out' principle.
All very well and fine, but if all these things need to be in place to combat our uniquely unhealthy relationship with booze, why is the government so determined to push on with plans to liberalise our drinking laws?
"It's raining in Paris" is the old code for "your underskirt is showing". Now we'll have to find a new code for "it's raining on Saturn." As more and more fascinating information and pictures are thrown up by Titan's endeavours we'll be speaking live to Dr David Southwood, Director of Science at the European Space Agency.
And our mean streets. Is the way we use our streets completely wrong? It's claimed that many towns suffer from empty shops, bleak, windy pedestrian precincts, and a prominent place in the book, "Crap Towns", not because of economics but because they misunderstand how people want to walk around buildings and the spaces in between.
David Sillitoe's been to Colchester where they have altered the pattern of cars and pedestrians - in short, urban design.
I hope you'll step right up at 10.30pm.
Kirsty
If you have a story for Newsnight, please send us an email via our website:
bbc.co.uk/newsnight 
<< Home