Oh, so I drank one
It became four
And when I fell on the floor …
…I drank more

We all know Morrissey‘s lyrics are thought provoking, at some times baffling, and occasionally outright racist (in a daft way); but this phrase has always stuck with me as it epitomises the so-called “binge” culture which tends to vilify anyone who considers enjoying themselves on a night out. A culture which looks down on anyone who mentions they like beer or had more than a single bottle or can in an evening. Admitting to being a “bit rough” at work can often land you with counselling sessions, and if you’re not careful loose promotion prospects indefinitely.

Winston Churchil : The Original Boozer

Now the question is does this stop you from succeeding noting you enjoy a tipple or two or three or is it as soon as you sniff the barmaids apron you are doomed to a life of stale vomit and holidaying at her majesty’s pleasure. In Tony Blair’s recent autobiography we see he had a “drinking problem” as he enjoyed a couple of glasses of wine in the evening to unwind. In this country he has been shown as “weak” and parallels have been attempted to be drawn between his political decisions and after he “had a couple”. In other countries if he had admitted the same The French wouldn’t have cared the German’s would have slapped their leather pants and the Russians would think it was wrong if he wasn’t shown to be completely incapable at least once a month.

So what of the beer? Well the beer was a staggeringly overpriced “John Smith’s Bitter”; which is a far cry from the Tesco value beers which you can get for 12p a can; but its actually one you can drink a lot of very easily and get drunk from; unlike the other cheaper alternatives which is more a test of bladder endurance than anything else.

I cannot describe the entire evening, nor do I want to, but I enjoyed many cans of this fine beverage watched a couple of films, enjoyed a pizza and nattered to several of my friends. This is an evening which I have done before and I will most likely do again. It was nothing to shout about, it was a relaxing evening doing relaxing activities I was warm, content had a full stomach and aside from the every increasing need to visit the toilet went off without a hitch.

Had such an evening been no a street corner; in a park with a group of my friends I would have been instantly deemed as a public nuisance and a picture of modern Britain. Do I feel ashamed for breaking my weekly alcohol limit in a single night over the weekend? No; it is part of the fabric of modern life I wasn’t forced into it nor coerced by advertising I simply had a relaxing night in. Had I been in a public house laughing joking, playing pool before staggering home at 2am my picture may have ended up in the paper the next day detailing how we as a society have come off the rails and everyone should remember to eat “five a day”; never have more than a single glass of wine in one sitting and not raise our voice above a whisper past 8pm.

So this beer is dedicated to the hard working folks who work for a living, pay their tax and support society and may need once a week or so to enjoy more than a single alcoholic drink in a sitting; relax with good company and enjoy unhealthy food. Life’s too hard at the best of times, why make it harder? Lean back crack open a cold one and let the beer wash over you so at least for a short time you can forget your boss; forget the commute and leave the dishes in the sink until the following morning.

I never did quite make the floor, but I did reach my happy place where the rest of the world falls away and I remember what’s important to me.

The day: 14.
The drink: John Smith’s Bitter (several).
The place: Home.
Positives: Warm fuzzy feeling inside.
Negatives: Exponential need to visit the toilet.
Conclusion: Done right a few beers at home over the limits relaxes you and allows you to enjoy the company of friends more; you laugh more you cry; it unlocks your soul to the world you have been missing whilst at work.

beer · drunk · happy · home · john smiths · pizza · society · toilet

If I may, a proposition: many people drink because there’s nothing better to do.

I’ve thought and thought until I scweamed and I seem to be near a vague conclusion that the lack of any better alternatives is what a lot of it basically boils down to. It is very, very easy to prevaricate about the reasons why – it’s my genes, it’s my character, it’s my job’s fault, it’s my reward – but if you cut to the chase, all of those reasons essentially end up being caused by there being no better way for a person to spend their time.

This man's purpose is to make his own limbs fall off by drinking red wine for 19 solid days.

Not everyone’s condemned to a life of slavish ale quaffing. There are a group of people for whom there is a better way to spend their time, and today it finally clicked how those people get to be that way. Flicking through The Independent I came across a short piece about a tribute to Jean Charles de Menezes, sadly not a rock tribute penned by Damon Albarn with Brian May on guitar but a mural of some sort which passing tourists in years to come will walk past with little more than a bemused glance. His family stand in front of it with faces drooping with sorrow, much as they have since the day he died in 2005. That day was the day they gained purpose.

Directly beneath this story is news of a quadriplegic sailor crossing the Atlantic. Mankind has a tremendous ability to corrupt and degrade itself, as if intelligence is waged in an unknown war against evolution, and our great fondness of the critically disabled embarking on insane endeavours to cross our widest oceans and scale our highest hills is a good example of this. The whole cast of Gladiators combined into one enormous muscular super-entity would find it a fairly challenging and pointless task to sail across a massive bit of water, yet it seems an irresistible challenge for the completely body-fucked. Would this man have fancied the job if he had limbs? Not much chance. The day he lost those limbs was the day he gained purpose.

A little later in today’s paper we hit the obituaries and see that Freya Grafin von Moltke has died. She was involved in the plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944 and then became known as an anti-Nazi worker. The last 60 years of this woman’s life have been based upon that one event; it was the day she found a purpose.

What struck me today is that there are people who shit happens to who then have a purpose for the rest of their lives. If my sister was gunned down on the tube, I’m pretty sure it’d take my life over for the next few years; going for a beer on an otherwise empty evening would cease to exist as an option. If I ran through a fiendishly-designed sawmill and lost my limbs overnight, the law of averages says I would succumb to a sudden compulsion to travel to Mars using nothing but a hand fan sellotaped to my back. If circumstances deigned I be born with access to the Fourth Reich, I’d end up plotting to blow them up; no time for gluhwein, thankyou. As it is, I’m just meandering through life with no one purpose distinct to anyone else.

My observation of the matter is that life happens to a minority, life is created by a smaller minority and for the rest, life drifts by with an opiate of choice; English society today mostly chooses beer to fill the gaps.

Beers · society