Saturday 9 January 2010

I'm going outside now. I may be gone some time.

Off out to brave the Antarctic cold and the ice tonight, for a quick visit to the pub then on to the Smoky-Drinky place. Hopefully I can get there and back without my spiked stick (essential for negotiating the glaciers in the streets) being classed as an offensive weapon and stolen by the laughing policemen.

I can drink and smoke at home (for now), but something's missing. I can drink and smoke at the Smoky-Drinky place which is better than sitting at home watching snowflakes fall, but there's still that one little thing. We mainly drink whisky at the Smoky-Drinky place for good reason, and it's not only because there's only one toilet.

It's beer. Beer from a can or a bottle is cheaper than buying it in the pub, but a pint pulled from a tap just tastes so much better. Even the cans with the fizz-widget in the bottom don't match it. A proper pint of Calder's 80/- in the pub knocks spots off the same beer in a fizz-widget can.

So it's pub first for a proper beer or two, then off to the Smoky-Drinky place for the rest of the evening because if those antismokers think I'm going to pay to support the industry by standing outside in this weather, tough.

I'll miss every pub that closes but I'm effectively banned from them all in bad weather because I like a drink and a smoke. No pub allows that and no pub is allowed to allow it. So I really can't do much to help those pubs no matter how much I'd like to spend more time and money in there. I'll have Electrofag with me in the pub but it's a substitute too. It'll be real tobacco at the Smoky Drinky place.

If only we could get hold of a keg and a tap. That might draw a little too much attention, unfortunately. A pool table would be good too but the Smoky-Drinky place isn't big enough. Besides, it would seriously affect the mobility of the place.

So, as long as we aren't allowed to take our pints outside and aren't allowed to smoke inside, the combined pleasures of smoking and drinking decent beer are forever separated.

If I can spread the rumour that ASH want access to homes with children for less than savoury purposes, I will do so. No mercy, no negotiation and no compromise. It doesn't even have to have a grain of truth in it. Just some made up 'facts' and 'figures'.

It's the way they've played the game against me so far.

Time to go and discuss it with some smokers...

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do the logistics of homebrew not work for you? It has improved a lot since the olden days I am given to understand.

Catinthehat

Dick Puddlecote said...

Bloody good point. I hope all those researchers are fully CRB checked. Otherwise, someone might wonder if the same rules apply to the righteous.

nbc said...

Around here you can buy a four pint container to take home with you. It's not as cheap as supermarket beer but it tastes good in your own armchair.

Anonymous said...

Enjoy your drink LI I live out in the sticks and am snowed in but will be having my nightcap or 3 shortly

Anonymous said...

Home brewing!!!!!!!!!!!!
Drinking at home!!!!!!!!

Allright if you're 90+. crippled
or unwanted



Styx Pilot Service

ScotsToryB said...

http://www.jf-kegs.co.uk/prices.html

including delivery and hire of a pump this would work out at say £1.50 a pint approx.

I've no interest in the Co.-just found it on google.

I too have been hearing rumours about ASH employees. Scurrilous and hopefully unfounded but we can't be too careful for they are actively targeting The Cheeeldren.

STB.

Amusing Bunni said...

Have fun at the smokey drinky place, and don't let anyone confiscate your stick ;-)

Anonymous said...

L-I, the law arrived here in Cyprus on 1st.Jan - so far so good, no one gives a shit in our 'smokey-drinky' place!! Oh, I love it! Take care going home.
Brian

Furor Teutonicus said...

If only we could get hold of a keg and a tap.

Any offy Drinks wholesalers will sell/rent you the equipment.

Unless you are selling the beer, therefore becoming a Shebeen, there is fuck all any one can do about it.

Anonymous said...

Very valid point about ASH's real reasons for visiting homes with cheeeldren in - and indeed it raises the question whether the parents in those homes visited have the right to see the CRB check of anyone who knocks on their door, or at least to request written confirmation from the "authority" in question that a CRB check has been made and that the visitor in question is certified free of all criminal offences. And, of course, if they have one and can show it, it would certainly be worth telephoning the "authority" in question to ask - in all innocence, of course - why the visitor/s were so keen to visit the children's bedrooms whilst the parents stayed downstairs so as not to "interfere with their investigations." After all, a clear CRB doc doesn't prove you're not a crook or a pervert or a nutter - it just proves that you haven't been caught for being any of those things. Could be a chance to hoist a few interfering busybodies by their own petard, methinks?

subrosa said...

I'd advise you to go home on your backside. Much safer. Use your stick as a paddle. You'll likely been numb anyway so you won't notice the sodden breeks until the steam rises off them when you've been in a wee while. :)

Leg-iron said...

Homebrew can be good but the results are variable.

Even with excellent homebrew, you don't have the atmosphere of the pub and the random conversations with strangers...

...which might be what has to be stopped.

Subrosa - I made it home without landing on my arse at all. So I feel justified in finishing the last few drops of Bunnahabain because tomorrow (today) is Sunday and nobody will phone.

Brian, follower of Deornoth said...

Many breweries sell beer by the polypin (36 pints) so if you want some real ale you shouldn't have too much wastage. Best not to have it delivered to smoky-drinky directly, though, in the interests of security (how's that for living in a 'free country'?).

Anonymous said...

LI: "... you don't have the atmosphere of the pub and the random conversations with strangers...
...which might be what has to be stopped."

I don't think there is any doubt ... but less to do with conversations with strangers and more with the revolutionary speculation of regulars.

opinions powered by SendLove.to