A Wetter January
Our moderate Mayfair drinker ponders the ridiculousness of giving up mid-winter booze – just when you need a little snifter or two
Column by Guy Shepherd
“If I got rid of my demons, I’d lose my angels”, Tennessee Williams once said. Winter tends to be a time of year when the good and bad aspects of life are forced on us, the feast of pre-New Year, the fast of after. The conflict is always personal, despite being shared by many, with annual fads of resolution and promise. Why is it that we attempt to give up the very things that warm us through the bleakness of the season? It might be just coincidence that the latest Star Wars came out during this annual dichotomy. A story that we have seen six times before but which still manages to massage our cerebral plain into decisions regarding the darker side of life versus freedom. But it is never easy. Let’s face it, the baddies are usually far cooler and certainly far better dressed that their hobo like counterparts. Think Romans and disciples. Indeed in Biblical terms, a dearly departed vicar friend of mine used to throw the wildest party annually called Pre-Lenten Libations. The residents of his village still flinch at the mere mention of a White Russian. Maybe it occasionally forced them to abstain for forty days and nights too.
A number of the GUY&MAX team have attempted to be good and do the dry January thing. A thoroughly splendid achievement and well worthwhile. But why January? Surely the only way to tackle the travails of winter is through booze? I go with my father and friends on holiday to Scotland every January so having a dry month is just unrealistic. Yomping around frozen lochs and over sodden glens without alcoholic respite is clearly unsustainable. You may remember that I gave up the grog for a few weeks in the autumn. That is a good time of year to be sober. All aspects of life are sharpened, whether at work or play, energy levels rocket but the dance floor just becomes a little too dull and one can’t be free of pant swinging for too long. It is all about finding a balance. But that is easier said than done.
In very British terms, I am a moderate drinker. Americans favour the expression alcoholic and believe it is a disease. Denial occasionally works. Wine making dates back seven thousand years, beer about five and a half. Drinking is ingrained in our psyche and social culture. My perfect evening, providing balance in the Force, would be as follows. The romantic insouciance at my Shepherd Market salon means that the champagne flows. We are often open until 8pm because our clients favour an after work pre-supper appointment and I will sometimes join them in their bubbly celebration. My meanderings after work would then take me to L’Artiste Musclé a few doors away. For a reasonable fare, friends can enjoy all things French from snails to salads, steaks to saucisson. There are no secrets to this success story; the house claret is perfect and the food drips with butter and garlic. It is small wonder that I have not found a second wife yet. And then to 5 Hertford Street. Oh, oh, oooooh. Filthy Dirty Martinis served by the friendliest staff anywhere in environs that just make you so jolly comfortable. Suitably fortified, the dance floor becomes your very own, whether literally, or shared with gyrating glitterati. Perfection from booze to boogie.
But that is often not the reality. All it takes is popping that extra bottle in the shop or another bash at the Bordeaux in the restaurant or another martini or two on the dance floor. Ouch. Many of us know just how difficult it is to stop, don’t we? There seems to be a switch in the mind which, on lubrication with toxins, becomes easier and easier to flip. At the Millennium, I was lucky enough to go with thirty six friends on six boats sailing around the island of Antigua. There were few nautical folk amongst us but, by a miracle, we returned the craft more or less intact two weeks later. Sailing is a highly skilled operation. Add Caribbean swells, reefs, winds, beer and rum and it becomes near impossible. I recognised my own limitations early and became my ship’s cocktail mixer. Shore excursions were thankfully frequent and usually were based around the subjects of eating, drinking and dancing. We made friends at most of the establishments we visited thanks to our pirate costumes and wallets. Some of us even made friends without these accoutrements. My favourite photo from Millennium Eve is of the English Harbour Yacht Club commandant and his wife chatting merrily to one of my friends, amongst a melange of dignitaries, who is pictured holding a glass of fizz in one hand, the bottle in the other and, oh yes, he is naked. No one batted an eyelid. I put it down to him going to a repressive school. Yes, that one.. Eton.
On one restaurant excursion, after our bellies had been distended with exquisite seafood, a girl friend and I discovered a separate cocktail bar in the grounds. It was circular and enclosed against the seasonal hurricanes. It was also empty, bar the steward. We pulled up high stools and ordered a brace of fruit punch shots. Delicious. She then challenged me to a game of paper, scissors, stone, the loser having to drink a shot. Good news travels fast. Bad faster. Before long the bar was packed to the rafters and bets were flying furiously regarding the outcome of the contest. I am not a gambling man. I believe in the equal rights of men and women. However, alcohol dulls the brain and I was damned if I was going to have a girl beat me in a drinking competition. Which she duly did. Reliable sources tell me that my descent to the concrete floor was sudden, forcing my sunglasses into my forehead. The scars I maintained for a couple of years supported their testimony.
The lunge out of unconsciousness, that I evidently made, only resulted in a secondary fall into the nearby swimming pool where I sank like I stone (thanks, BK, for saving my life). When I was eventually deposited in my ship bunk, I missed a whole day and night. Very clever. Not.
But where lies the happy medium? It takes an enormous amount of dedication and hard work to either be alcohol free or entirely soaked in the stuff. One old sop’s advice to his son was to have a day off the booze every week, a week off every month and a month off every year. It calculates at sobriety for over a quarter of the year. Try it. We often make decisions based on our understanding of moral codes such as the Bible and Star Wars. What is good and what is evil? My own belief system stems from a comprehensive knowledge of both the Rock and the Roll. The first dance at my only wedding to date (for’er the optimist) was The Clovers, “Devil or Angel”. Go on, YouTube it. Simple dilemmas that may or may not be answered in this lifetime. Meanwhile it’s great fun trying to baffle it all out.