A bit long in the tooth

I'm off out to meet a former colleague for a drink this evening.  It never is a drink, of course, but several drinks.  The English and their euphemisms, eh?  I'm sufficiently old and honest with myself to admit that I sort of dread events like this now.  I used to love them, in my salad days.  But latterly, I just want to have a couple of pints of an evening and cuddle up on the Chesterfield with the missus and episode of Inspector Morse.  

I suppose this is simply an example of life preparing me incrementally of an eternity of oblivion.  The avenues of pleasure become narrower and narrower as one ages, until eventually you lose the will to go on and willingly turn up your toes.  A propos of this, I believe Kenneth Williams' last recorded words where something like "Oh, what's the bloody point?".  Shortly thereafter he swallowed a heroic dose of prescription drugs and died.  Whether this was by accident or design, we shall never know.  But what is clear is that he was increasingly embittered by life toward to the end.

In order to cope with the contradictory demands of revelry and my increasing sociopathy, I set myself a limit of how much I can drink.  This is fine if I know I can shift more than the other members of the party.  Tonight, I can't rely on this physical advantage.  My mate can drink, and quickly.  I don't.  In cycling parlance, I'm a diesel, not a sprinter.  So I'm going to have to manage the situation using slight of hand and misdirection.  Both of which I'm shit at, by the way.

I will only judge the evening a success if I don't have a hangover in the morning.  I'll get back to you on that.

There's a good boy

As we go to press, my plan to behave myself at the office Christmas party tonight is holding-up manfully.  I rode my bike to the tube station this morning and left it there.  The strategy behind this move is that having to ride it home from the station later will reinforce my resolve to drink moderately - the rationale being that one cannot ride a push bike when catastrophically pissed-up.  Although having said that, I have done this in the past of course, once memorably along the very narrow towpath of the river Lea.  The blood still curdles at the thought of that trip.

At my age, I should be able to control myself better than this.  In small groups I am quite disciplined, but in a vulgar mob I lose all restraint.  This is due to my profound shyness.  I need at least four pints to settle my nerves.  By then of course one's judgement is clouded and the Tasmanian Devil that lives in my head starts goading me into "having a tear up".  The residual sensible part of my brain sees all this unfolding, but is powerless to intervene.  He just sits in the corner, shaking his head and tutting.  After a couple of hours of determined necking, I'll find myself dancing, and then even the crapulent mind knows the game's up.

No dancing tonight, none.

I know it's only rock n roll, but could you turn it down?

I'm off to a friend's 50th birthday party this evening.  It's in a rather nice pub in a rather nice part of town.  That's all good then, 'eh?  The trouble is today is Friday.  That doesn't sound like a major hurdle in black and white, but it is.

I'll level with you: I've reached that stage in a man's affairs when he can no longer sustain a hangover.  Actually, that's not strictly true.  I can tolerate them, but only if they occur at very specific times, on a Friday for example.  I'll quite happily shift a few quarts of Guinness with friends on a Thursday evening if the opportunity to break bread emerges.  It's just a matter of crawling through Friday in the office, which is like a day off in most offices these days anyway.  Everyone turns up in mufti, and mentally everyone's brought his toys along so there's no real work to be done.  It's like the last day of term in an infants' school.

But the very idea of being hungover on a Saturday fills me with dread.  Saturday is sacrosanct.  I rise early, fetch some bread, make the breakfast and then spend 3 hours gnawing it.  This is generally followed by a hundred minutes' noodling on a ukulele.

In the afternoon I potter.  I used to loathe pottering and all it stood for when I was young and callow.  Absolutely hate it.  In those days, had someone invited me to a party on a Friday, I've have been champing at the beer bit by about 11:30am, and would have given full reign to my crapulent instincts once at the bar, getting what PG Wodehouse referred to as "a might polluted" in the process.  Saturday could take care of itself.