All alcohol is equal but some is more equal than others. I can take a hell of a lot of gin but a night on the white wine and I’m waking up, finding an olive in my handbag and deducing that I paid a visit to Subway the previous night. And I hate Subway. If only there was a type of alcohol purposefully made for social occasions where it is unwise to get wrecked; important work events or horrific first dates with men with no sense of humour and moist fat lips. If only there was a formula that enables you to know your limit or which type of alcohol gets you drunk the quickest.
In the Victorian times, young ladies were sent to exclusive finishing schools on the edge of lakes in Switzerland to teach them such essentials as how to receive visitors, sew nicely and which gloves go with which outfit. If we had such institutions these days, perhaps I wouldn’t be so well acquainted with certain starlet’s gussets. It would be tragic. There are things that everyone ought to know - in my opinion, learning to drive and how to exit a failed romance with grace – but the most important has to be: how to drink. There are few things less appealing than a raddled slapper slumped in a doorway, both skirt and dignity gone west. But alcohol is amazing, and being drunk is lots and lots of fun so one needs to know how to stage-manage one’s consumption of alcohol so one gets drunk without being a dipsomaniac.
Some handy hints
There is no need to decide initially how smashed you wish to be. Don’t pressurise yourself. There’s nothing worse than birthdays or other allegedly important social events where you plan to be ratted. If you follow that course of action, you will be in bed by 5:57pm and have a devil of a head the next day. That way lies ruin.
Tailor the drink to the occasion. There are so many genius forms of booze that to deny them all access to your person is cruel. If you’re having a nice meal? A glass of red, surely. First date with a boring man? The only course of action is some serious drunkenness which calls for cocktails. Beware of mixing. It always seems like a good idea but it results in the worst, worst hangovers. Especially do not mix rosé wine with anything. I once had a three-day hangover courtesy of rosé wine, red wine, cocktails, beer and cider.
Find your poison. This may take years but there is nothing nicer than having a signature drink. This is the one you can take and take and take and never bores you. I can take 12 gins with no hangover. However, white wine or any negligible amount of whiskey and I’m slumped in a gutter, befriending tramps and sending abusive text messages to men with ridiculous hair.
Use alcohol to impress people ‘It’s not big and it’s not clever’ my mother would always recite as I ambled home yet again, smelling of Moscow Mules and Boys. This is untrue, as are so many lies told to children. Knowledge of even slightly obscure booze brands impresses, as does being a dab hand at making cocktails. Although don’t do what I did and, despite working in a cocktail bar for 18 mths and boasting of my excellent mojitos, forget to put any sugar in, therefore feeding my friends a bitter and vile concoction.
Dancing aids longevity. If you sit and merely drink, a time will come, and sooner rather than later, when you are spent and must wordlessly crawl home. However, the smallest form of movement, be it dancing, french-kissing or even walking between pubs helps to keep you going until the night is over.
Things that should never be done:
Take tights off in public. Self-explanatory. See mention of raddled slapper above.
Flash for booze, or ever. See above.
Take valuables out. This includes, depending on your state of drunkenness, ipod, mobile phone, more dosh than you need, vintage handbags (irreplaceable!), Oyster card, attractive boyfriend… More than one friend of mine has awoken with a jolt in Ilford with headphones still firmly lodged in but no pod.
Eat from anywhere near Tottenham Court Road tube station. Only tourists and teenagers can legitimately partake of those pizza slices and hotdogs
Booty-call an ex unless you’re entirely sure that the answer is yes. Facing rejection whilst wasted is amusing for your friends but leads to terrible things like taking beefy provincial squaddies home with you.
And, obviously, NEVER EVER get in one of those dodgy minicabs. There is a reason Ken spent all our cash on those advertising campaigns.
Everything else is perfectly acceptable drunk behaviour; scrawling obscure messages in toilets, eating someone’s leftover chicken, snogging complete randoms and/or your friends, peeing in bins. And a last word for those who wake with dread at the thought of the previous night’s actions. If your friends are going to get pissed off then they’re not real friends, are they?
Sunday, 14 January 2007
People I have gone home, but not slept with: An Occasional Series
Johnny and the KY Jelly
This incident can clearly be blamed on the especially bad haircut I had this particular year. I never realised before how important something as silly as hair can be. I met him on my birthday in the most tabloid pub in South Kensington. I was there to give a speech about the play I was about to direct and he was the theatre company’s website designer. He bought me a birthday glass of wine and when we left, he ran after me and gave me his business card. His name was Johnny No (I later found out that this was not his real name and he had changed it to sound more cool and Bond villianish. Draw your own conclusions) and he was fit in an older, rugged way, although during the date I kept re-guessing his age (thirty-eight? Forty-one?) as he seemed to look older as the night progressed. In bed he looked like an Egyptian mummy. We met in the East End and the date was a blur of making out hysterically in pubs. Whenever we spoke it was clear we had absolutely nothing in common. He couldn’t keep up any semblance of conversation and, as soon as was decently possible, he asked me back to his. Like I said, I was needy that year.
His flat was on the end of Hackney Road, a mere minute walk from the bar we’d just been in. I didn’t even get a cup of tea. His room was small and incredibly hot, with several Agent Provocateur bags on the back of the door and a giant mirror propped up at the head of the bed. It was a clear failed older man shag pad. As we were kissing, his hand kept sliding inside his own trousers and eventually, before either of us were even knickerless, he broke away and began masturbating very hard. I kept expecting him to stop and ask me to join in the action but this didn’t happen. Johnny then reached into the open drawer of his bedside table and got out some KY Jelly to aid his wank. When he came, some of it spurted past his head and landed in stringy jets on the mirror. ‘That always happens’ he said, and I left.
This incident can clearly be blamed on the especially bad haircut I had this particular year. I never realised before how important something as silly as hair can be. I met him on my birthday in the most tabloid pub in South Kensington. I was there to give a speech about the play I was about to direct and he was the theatre company’s website designer. He bought me a birthday glass of wine and when we left, he ran after me and gave me his business card. His name was Johnny No (I later found out that this was not his real name and he had changed it to sound more cool and Bond villianish. Draw your own conclusions) and he was fit in an older, rugged way, although during the date I kept re-guessing his age (thirty-eight? Forty-one?) as he seemed to look older as the night progressed. In bed he looked like an Egyptian mummy. We met in the East End and the date was a blur of making out hysterically in pubs. Whenever we spoke it was clear we had absolutely nothing in common. He couldn’t keep up any semblance of conversation and, as soon as was decently possible, he asked me back to his. Like I said, I was needy that year.
His flat was on the end of Hackney Road, a mere minute walk from the bar we’d just been in. I didn’t even get a cup of tea. His room was small and incredibly hot, with several Agent Provocateur bags on the back of the door and a giant mirror propped up at the head of the bed. It was a clear failed older man shag pad. As we were kissing, his hand kept sliding inside his own trousers and eventually, before either of us were even knickerless, he broke away and began masturbating very hard. I kept expecting him to stop and ask me to join in the action but this didn’t happen. Johnny then reached into the open drawer of his bedside table and got out some KY Jelly to aid his wank. When he came, some of it spurted past his head and landed in stringy jets on the mirror. ‘That always happens’ he said, and I left.
Thursday, 11 January 2007
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