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JohnJ: I'm sure that having an open container of alcohol in a car in the UK would be insanely illegal.
No, it isn't. You could even be the driver and drinking it, so long as you remain under the legal limit and retain proper control of the car.
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I'm not so sure about the other, though. Is it common practice in the UK to bring your own alchohol into an eatery or be able to leave with unfinished portions?
I wouldn't say it's common to BYO alcohol. But you can do it if the restaurant allows it, and there are no special rules about it. The most common inhibition on the practice is simply that restaurants usually won't allow it, or insist on some huge corkage fee, because they'd prefer to sell you their stock at their profit margins. The restaurant does not need a special licence to allow BYO, and there certainly are restaurants (some quite well known) which have no alcohol licence and positively invite you to BYO; indeed, some of those have no licence because they're Muslim institutions and so won't sell any, but they have no problems with customers bringing there own.

As for taking away unfinished drinks - no problem.

Long-haul flying - how to sleep your way around the world.