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.

Guinness...straight glass

Well, I survived the annual office Christmas piss-up relatively unscathed.  I had to be up earlyish this morning to scoot off to a physio appointment, so I took it easy.  Actually, I didn't take it easy; I necked at my usual fevered pace, but I dragged myself away from the crash site at 9pm, so all was well.

This morning I felt very pleased with myself as a result.  What a dreadful little prig I am in circs. like this.  My hubris was compounded when I got to work and surveyed the damage amongst my colleagues, one of whom was so hungover he winced at every time he took a step around the office.  The chap who sits next to my desk, and who has a raging thirst, couldn't a recall a single event from the entire evening except for his being harangued by the staff at his hotel for trying to climb over the reception desk and steal a bag of Maltesers when he returned to his room in the small hours.  He then had the Olympic chutzpah to complain about the absence of bacon on the complimentary breakfast buffet.

Anyway, one Yuletide hurdle cleared.  Time to pin back the ears and hurtle toward the next.  To the pub!

An evening on the tiles...

I had a rare night out on the pop last night.  It was to commemorate and commiserate with my former boss, who has been unceremoniously bumped from his job after 20 years' service.  I used to look forward to these affairs, but these days I eye them with dread.  I simply cannot stick away six pints and not feel the consequences.  That implies I used not to notice the damage; that isn't true.  But I was better at ignoring it when I was younger.  Also I had fewer qualms about turning up to work in an unfit state.  These days, I feel bad if I arrive at the office bright green and trembling.

I left them to it at about 10 o'clock.  My former boss, who was visibly in his cups when I arrived at 7pm, was still draining the bitter cup when I left.  I imagine the inside of his nut resembles the Somme today.

[update]: I got an email from him a few moments ago.  He was so "confused" upon reaching home that climbing the stairs seemed a Herculean task, so he slept downstairs with the cat instead.

What else has been happening?  Oh, yes, I know - Sainsbury's has unveiled its Christmas advert, which is a dramatisation of the famous Christmas truce during the Great War when British and German troops met in no-man's land to play football.  It's a beautifully realised, subtle and sweetly poignant film, and about the most offensive thing I've ever laid eyes on.

I'm staggered that not absolutely everyone in the country isn't horrified by this cynical, heartless and brutally calculating piece of marketing.  Let's think about it for a moment.  A supermarket is using the First World War to hawk its pickled onions and y-fronts.  If, as some people argue, it's fine to to invoke an historical event in which thousands tragically died, then why not go the whole hog next year and base the entire yuletide campaign on 9/11?  The reason they won't is because people would, quite rightly, hit the fucking roof.

But the principle is exactly the same.  Or are we to conclude that an event that killed 37 million people...err...yonks ago is fair game, but one that killed three and a half thousand and happened within living memory is off limits as to use it to market Pot Noodles might, just might, be considered to be beyond the fucking pale?  This is clearly bullshit.  It is either a principled or an unprincipled act.  One cannot cherry pick instances when it's okay and others when it's not.  That's like arguing that it's fine to ridicule a Chinaman, but not a Nigerian.  Actually I do believe some racists actually advance this confused argument.

Grimble gromble hatstand

I'm not sure what's happening today, blog wise.  I've found by rereading my diary that I've started dropping into a very prescriptive form for my daily entries.  The weather first, followed by how busy I am at work, followed by my route home and ending up with what's on the telly.  There's no scope for empty-headed scat scribbling within this highly-structured form.  I need, therefore, to break its face with a forearm smash of art terrorism.

When I was younger (i.e. at any time prior to now) I used to be so tired and hungover when filling in brer diary that my musings would meander wherever they saw fit.  This was useful because rereading it was like reading the thoughts of a dissolute stranger, who just so happened to be inhabiting my body at the time as I was using it.  This is as exhilarating as its sounds.  But as I've aged, I've become more and more bound by bourgeois routine.  And the old BR absolutely hates improv.

This is age creeping up on one of course.  However, I'm a great believer that age-appropriate behaviour is conditioned - nurture rather than nature.  Given this, it is possible to override it.  I shall do this using positive affirmation and hyperventilation.