Seasonal Booze Ups

It is testament to how far Fleet Street as fallen from its inglory days that I was until now only dimly aware of the old journalistic tradition of Wayzgoosing. In those days newspapers did not publish on Good Friday, allowing printers and, when they cottoned on to the idea, the hacks, to indulge in spectacular piss ups.

Roy Greenslade has a fine overview of the tradition, and also links to some splendid anecdotes from the Gentlemen Ranters (this one is worth a read, not least for the picture). His own stories aren't too shabby either.

I also recall a Sun/Daily Mirror subeditorial wayzgoose that did make it to France, with embarrassing consequences. The good burghers (of Dieppe, I think) had been wrongly informed that a group of important British journalists were due to arrive and duly turned out the mayor and the town band to greet them off the ferry.

Sadly, by the time the wayzgoosers arrived, they had been drinking non-stop for many hours since leaving London and were only able to walk by leaning against each other.

Pity today's hacks – sorry, make that "content providers" – hard at work as usual today and often unaware of this custom.

It's Good Friday tomorrow, when another Easter drinking spectacular is in the offing across the water. You see, it is the one day (bar Christmas) when every pub in Ireland is forced to close. It is one of the last reflexive genuflections made towards the Catholic Church in the country; a ritual devoid of any real meaning or purpose (you may wish to develop this metaphor) and naturally, treated by all right-thinking people as the chance for a monstrous piss-up.

The greater availability of off-sales (closed on the day, of course) has helped greatly. Maundy Thursday is a boom day for retailers; as for their customers, I still recall one Good Friday party in Cork which left me feeling far worse than anyone who partakes of that curious bit of Filipino piety whereby they nail themselves to a cross would. However, in the days before off licences were so common, there were several ingenious ways by which people could get a drink.

Ferries were exempt, so trips to Wales or the Isle of Man were popular. Some people even went to the North, because if ever there was a fun place to be it was Belfast circa 1922-97. Train journeys, too, had no constraints, so many people would spend the day in a diurnal course of journeys with no end in sight and a constant stream of booze (shades of the great Moskva-Petushki there).

But the most curious exemption was the dog show held on Good Friday in the Royal Dublin Society. The bar there was the one place allowed to serve alcohol (one suspects the powers that be thought that only irredeemable West Brits would go to a dog show on that day, a similar mindset to the people who bombed the La Mon, you might note). The event was a great favourite of the likes of Brendan Beehan, Patrick Kavanagh and various other riffish and raffish sorts.

If only the Irish hacks had gone in for wayzgoosing.

Drunkeness is next to Godliness

Presbyterian drunks help save the planet.

Street drinkers in Glasgow are donating their empties to help build a church entirely from recycled materials.

Local alcoholics are said to have been "inspired" to do their bit after the Minister of Colston Milton, the Rev Christopher Rowe, told them of the ambitious plan.

Their empty beer cans are now being stored while the church raises money and collects more materials for the environmentally friendly building.

It has already been given £42,809 by the Scottish Climate Challenge Fund to carry out a study of how the "economically and ecologically sustainable" kirk can be built and maintained.

The ecologically sustainable kirk; ah what a glorious concept. I imagine the local alchies were delighted to find a cause that inspired them to keep handing over empty tins. To lapse into good Calvinist theology, the street drinkers are clearly God's elect; chosen out of the sinful mass of mankid. They may spend their days getting pished in the woods, but they are Righteous and Justified in their calling, and when the last trumpet sounds, lo, shall they say, "ye're a'ight, there, Big Man?"

Truly this is the first blast of the trumpet against the monstrous regiment of puritans.

Special Brew Saved My Life

Finally, the story to fit the headline has arrived.

Jaswant was by no means a heavy drinker but on the odd occasion when there was cause for celebration, he was partial to a Carlsberg Special Brew.

And what with all his relatives here, today certainly was a special occasion. No doubt about it. One drink led to another. And another. And slowly Jaswant wasn't in such a rush anymore.

"When his glass is empty, make sure you pour him another," his brother-in-law said to the barman. The barman duly obliged.

I've frequently heard good things about Sikh weddings and when it's a Sikh wedding in Belfast one can imagine it would be something pretty special. In this case the festive mood, which spilled over into Heathrow, caused Jaswant Basuta to miss the Pan Am flight that exploded over Lockerbie. The gods look after drunks.

Biblious, altius, fortius

Not very newsworthy on its own: Andy Parkinson, acting head of anti-doping at UK Sport fears that young athletes will be tempted to take performance enhancing drugs - and that they'll find them relatively easy to get.

But this claim made me sit up:

We have growth hormone, which it has been demonstrated you can get from a pub on the corner

I am afraid to say this information had passed me by, although maybe Andy Parkinson has some more interesting neighbourhood boozers than me. I can't help but wonder what kind of cocktail one might make with HGH; I'd guess you could add it to a bloody Mary, possibly have it as a chaser with Guinness, maybe even have it with some Rigas Balzams.

Still, if aspiring sports stars are visiting pubs in search of improvement, there is hope for the future yet.

EU drinking in the last chance salon

Recently I wrote about the curious Irish phenomenon of the found-ons, and noted that they captured a peculiar struggle between the desire for conformity and the desire to rebel in the Irish soul. You will find this same battle played out on a more trivial scale tomorrow in the referendum on the Lisbon I Can't Believe It's Not A Constitution Treaty.

Do they do the responsible, dutiful thing and allow the EU project to continue smoothly, or do they give two fingers to their rulers in Dublin and in Brussels?

Europe is not an issue on which too much heat should be generated, I think. Its enthusiasts tend to be the most over-eager bores, geeks and bureaucrats imaginable, while its opponents tend to be frothing lunatics (the Irish no-voter who has taken out advertisements denouncing it as ‘God-excluding foolish Freemason determined’ is a good example and provides a reminder of the dark days of John Charles McQuaid besides).

However, I think we can all agree that if the European Union was run by people who displayed greater empathy towards that corner of the human soul which understands the appeal of drinking illicitly in a bar in rural Ireland it would be much more popular.

PS: Here's a real irony for you. The Democratic Unionist Party betrays a fundamental element of the British constitution, by seeking to extend the state's power to detain people without charge.

Trollied Tuesday: The Political Drinker

If, as seems increasingly likely, Ken Livingstone loses the London mayoral election his campaign and supporters must surely be included in some sort of text book to show how to lose an election you really ought to win. I would bore myself were I to indulge in a lengthy analysis of the utter folly of basing a campaign upon things people clearly know about and do not care about (Boris is right-wing! He's a Tory! Who sometimes says silly things!)) while pretending that asking questions about his rather questionable associates is some sort of evil plot.

However, for Trollied Tuesday purposes there is one rather obvious line of attack. Boris Johnson has given up drinking for the duration of his election campaign. It should be obvious that a man prepared to stoop to such low, disreputable tactics in order to win an election is not to be trusted (especially one who knows perfectly well what in vino veritas means).

The Salamander Sultan's own, well-documented fondness for a refreshing breakfast-time whisky should give him a clear advantage over his opponent by allowing him to stand as the drinker's friend (it would also give him the advantage of allowing him to distance himself from an increasingly unpopular government; they order these things much better in Scotland). But in a good example of the missing an easy target in favour of blasting away repeatedly at one's own foot to which I alluded earlier, Livingstone's warning that his opponent would take London back to the 17th century shied away from the obvious conclusion.

Livingstone should stand as the 18th century candidate: an age in which the most progressive politicians were unabashed libertines such as Fox and Wilkes. An age in which dandies, rakes, courtesans and gamblers played a central role in politics.

And, rather than the aggrieved whining which greeted the news of Ken's faith in the restorative powers of alcohol, he should copy the example of the leading Tory of the late 18th century: William Pitt.

Pitt, too, found alcohol an excellent restorative. It was said of him as a youth that:

The boy was always weak and ill, and the only remedy which appeared efficacious was port wine, which the young Pitt consumed in quantities which would have made drunk a grown man. Such a regime would have killed most boys, but Pitt thrived on it and by the time he was 15 his health had improved considerably.

As Prime Minister, Pitt – as is pretty well-known – was a three-bottles-a-day man. (Not quite as impressive as it sounds, because the bottles used in his day contained no more than half a pint). However, he was hardly unusual in this, and it would be difficult to argue that the drinking culture of the age somehow coarsened or cheapened the political discourse of the time. In fact, one could argue that drinking represents one of the things about Britain's political culture which most impresses foreigners.

If London's mayoral candidates continue to shun the finer traditions of British politics the only possible response (apart from a Livingstonian breakfast) is to revive another tradition from 18th century elections. To pelt the candidates with ordure, stones and dead cats.

Cheap booze update

Spotted in a store on Cricklewood Lane: Scotsmac discounted to just £2.80. Let's hope the Daily Mail doesn't find out.

For those unfamiliar with this remarkable drink, it is a mixture of vintage British wine and Scots whisky. I only know of one person two people who have tried it and I gather it failed to meet their rather low expectations*.

Taste test? Come off it.

* Updated after Quink's foolish interruption in the comments outed himself as having sampled it.