Introducing Trollied Tuesday
My post in defence of the right to ignore the health police if one so wishes has led to this most excellent suggestion – and one I happy to steal – from Nick.
"Perhaps we should all go out and get sloshed on cheap booze in protest at the Government's nannying ways. We could call it 'Trolleyed Tuesday' , or 'Wankered Wednesday', or something ..."
Tuesday's the day, I think. There is a particular type for whom the idea of drinking so early in the week "on a school night" provokes gasps of horror. I hope that this innovation will encourage them to think differently.
Of course if you're getting sloshed to make a point, you have to let people know about it. My own small contribution to the cause will be as follows.Each Most Some Tuesdays will be marked with posts celebrating the pleasures of drinking, inspiring tales of heroic drinkers and anything which will amuse and inform.
This is not in itself enough, of course. In politics these days a sure fire method of getting ahead is to carve out a group identity, appoint yourself as leader of that group, then complain vociferously about the raw deal the group you've just created is getting. So it is with drinkers. I propose the formation of British Union of Boozers (led by me, naturally) which will defend the interests and rights of drinkers everywhere.
From henceforth let "It's my liver, I will do what want with it" be our rallying cry.
By this time next year I should have thought we should be powerful enough to rally outside parliament, each protesters clutching a tin of cheap supermarket lager, super strength stuff, absinth or dry martini as the choice takes them. To bolster turnout it might be worth bringing a few tins of Special Brew to encourage some the more picturesque members of the park bench community to join us.
Until such time let us raise a glass to booze and drink to the defeat of joyless puritans, wheresoever they may be.
"Perhaps we should all go out and get sloshed on cheap booze in protest at the Government's nannying ways. We could call it 'Trolleyed Tuesday' , or 'Wankered Wednesday', or something ..."
Tuesday's the day, I think. There is a particular type for whom the idea of drinking so early in the week "on a school night" provokes gasps of horror. I hope that this innovation will encourage them to think differently.
Of course if you're getting sloshed to make a point, you have to let people know about it. My own small contribution to the cause will be as follows.
This is not in itself enough, of course. In politics these days a sure fire method of getting ahead is to carve out a group identity, appoint yourself as leader of that group, then complain vociferously about the raw deal the group you've just created is getting. So it is with drinkers. I propose the formation of British Union of Boozers (led by me, naturally) which will defend the interests and rights of drinkers everywhere.
From henceforth let "It's my liver, I will do what want with it" be our rallying cry.
By this time next year I should have thought we should be powerful enough to rally outside parliament, each protesters clutching a tin of cheap supermarket lager, super strength stuff, absinth or dry martini as the choice takes them. To bolster turnout it might be worth bringing a few tins of Special Brew to encourage some the more picturesque members of the park bench community to join us.
Until such time let us raise a glass to booze and drink to the defeat of joyless puritans, wheresoever they may be.
Labels: british union of boozers, drink, trollied tuesday
posted by buff and blue at 3:18 pm
7 Comments:
Boozeday Tuesday?
Cheersh...
Will there be gin? If so, count me in. You just never know these days, they can call anything a Martini.
Puss
Gin? Oh yes, Puss. A martini is not a martini unless it is made from gin and vermouth. You can possibly tweak it a little, but not dick around with it the way some people do. I might expand on this next week.
Some would allow Vodka. I wouldn't. And stir, don't shake.
But what do I know, I'm married to the grape, and am rarely unfaithful.
Count me in, anyway.
Yours raising a glass of Petrus to myself and two fingers at the gvt,
P-Ump
I like to drink Martinis:
Two at the very most.
Three, and I’m under the table;
Four, and I’m under the host.
(Dorothy Parker)
A gratified Noel Coward humbly put on record that, on joining Franklin D. Roosevelt for cocktails in his study, he found that the great man skilfully mixed him a Martini without showing the slightest contempt for his lowly origin.
The essence of the recently lost art of cocktail mixing and tippling is that one does not merely look for the powerful hit of raw alcohol. The drinker is also prepared to bring to the raised glass and heightened spirit a sophisticated knowledge of the true nature of gin, and an awareness and appreciation of its subtleties. It does have subtleties, though entertainment must come first. Gin has within its essence many subtle flavours. That partly accounts for what I call the dry Martini syndrome. It is usually accepted that a dry Martini consists of a very large proportion of gin and a very small proportion of dry Martini or similar vermouth. Here lies the problem. Not only does gin consist of complex, carefully adjusted, ingredients; but vermouth does too.
Allesandro Martini and Luigi Rossi founded their famous vermouth company in Turin in 1863. For many years they printed on their labels an account of the wondrous mixes within their bottle of ‘extra dry’ Martini. Successors have ceased to enlighten their public in this way. That does not apply to the French Noilly Prat, another celebrated mixer and marketer of vermouth essences. On their bottles they claim a foundation date of 1813 and still say that their vermouth is mainly based on the ageing in oak, in the open air, of the Picpoul and Clairette white wines, followed by the blending and infusing with them of twenty different herbs. Mark that.
(...)
Ernest Hemingway named his very very dry Martini the Montgomery, with the ratio of gin to vermouth being 15:1. This arose because the British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery was reputed to have said he would only attack his German opposite number the desert fox Rommel if the odds in Montgomery’s favour, in terms of military forces, had reached fifteen to one. Hemingway’s novel Across the River and into the Trees has the following order by a Colonel Cantwell to the waiter in Harry’s Bar.
‘Two very dry Martinis. Montgomerys. Fifteen to one.’
The waiter, who had been in the desert, smiled and was gone.
The ultimate nature of the ultra-dry Martini is shown by the story of the Texan who told the bartender how he wanted his Martini mixed. ‘Half fill the shaker with ice’, he said. ‘Then top it up with gin’. His only other instruction was that before replacing the lid (prior to shaking) the bartender should whisper into the shaker the words ‘Dry Vermouth’. The bartender carried out this manoeuvre to the best of his ability, and then poured out a drink. The Texan took a sip, pondered a moment, then said: ‘Loudmouth!’.
From http://fbennion.blogspot.com/archives/2004_02_01_fbennion_archive.html#FBBB72
Barman? a Bombay Blue Sapphire with my compliments to Puss at the top of the bar there.
"Because drinking occasions can last up to five or seven hours, many such bingers never become intoxicated.
Clinically and traditionally, however, binge drinking is defined as a period of continuing intoxication lasting at least two days during which time the binger neglects usual life activities (work, family, etc.) ...
In earlier decades, "going on a binge" meant drinking over the course of days until one was no longer physically able to continue.
The usage is known to have entered the English language as early as 1854; it derives from an English dialectal word meaning to "soak" or literally "fill a boat with water"
(cut from a wiki somewhere)
Ann, are you saying The Lost Weekend was a boat trip?
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