If you’re a young lady off out on a night out in town ready for a party with your friends at one of our cities excellent late night venues, you’ve probably spent a long time considering the best outfit for the occasion.

Indeed many hours have probably been consumed whilst you ponder over the benefits of a halterneck top or the size of your stomach in that figure-hugging dress. And well done, you look good. But have you considered your outfit in relation to your safety? Are those opened ended sandals really the best thing to wear in a late night bar or club?

Being over six foot tall, male, and having a particularly rotund figure, I’ve never felt that scared at what might happen to my toes on a night out in town, and my masculine choice of clothes mean I’m never really showing off any skin.

Knowing Winchester is a pretty safe place to go out and party without fear of coming home with a bottle hanging out of my head or blood pouring from cut toes, I find it quite intriguing that the Winchester based Porthouse Nightclub has decided to serve its drinks in plastic glasses, and to only supply plastic bottled drinks to aid clubbers safety.

If I was woman though, I’d be commending them on being the first venue in the city to go over to a fully plastic operation. Having talked to various women in clubs whilst unsuccessfully trying to lure a telephone number or email address out of them, I understand that even a small shard of glass can cause real problems to ones dainty feet, and it takes no explanation to see how dangerous a lobbed bottle can be to ones looks or brain power.

Having looked into it, plastic glasses break a lot less frequently, bounce in a very amusing way, and hurt a lot less when less skilfully thrown across a dance floor. After being hit by both types on the bonce in the past, I can tell you – plastic is much better.

Many people say that drinks don’t taste as good in plastic containers. Luckily, members of the Campaign for Real Ale who persistently campaign for their drinks to be served in traditional glass dishes probably aren’t the target audience for the Upper Brook Street nightclub.

Being overly stereotypical, I’ll say that the students probably don’t care a great deal about the taste of their alcopop or ‘bomb’, and are most likely to get creative with their drink container after using it for its primary purpose. This is why the University of Winchester Students Union, and most unions across the country have decided on ‘plastic’ as standard.

So, I’d like to know when the other venues will follow this lead, and make the city safer for us who just like to go out and party without coming home with an embedded accessory?