Beer Versus Chocolate

At work last week, we had a charity coffee morning. The idea was that members of staff buy or bake cakes, bring them into work and then senior managers take on the role of waiters and visit everybody in the office selling coffee and cake for a small fee, with all of the proceeds going to charity.

It’s nice to see a senior manager being a waiter – doing something useful for a change.

I like to do my bit for charity but I decided that I didn’t want to bake a cake because I hate cooking and I am sure that I would have inadvertently poisoned my co-workers. Instead I went to the local supermarket and bought a nice big chocolate party cake. I was convinced that there would not be enough cake for everybody; sadly quite a few others thought the same and in the end, so much cake was baked or bought that we had tons of the stuff left.

This has meant that for the past few days, we have been selling what’s left, again for charity.

Today, in the kitchen at work, there was a huge chocolate monster of a cake. I was urged to buy a slice and the temptation was almost overwhelming but I declined because I am trying to climb back down to a healthy BMI and a slice of this cake would have annihilated a week’s effort. Add to that, if I had had one slice I would have struggled not to go back for more and more and more.

All this got me thinking, which is a dangerous thing.

There one other thing that has the same effect on me as “Death by Chocolate” monstrosity that was tempting me – and that is beer.

For a bit of fun, I have decided to present to you a comparison of these two supposedly evil foodstuffs.

In the red corner we have chocolate; in the blue corner we have beer.

(1) Beer is addictive. If you have a pint at your local pub, you immediately think to yourself “Just one more for the road”. Before you know it you have had several for the road. Similarly, if you open a box of Lindor chocolate, you subconsciously reach into the box eating one after the other until you finally look down and realise with horror that you have eaten every last one – and STILL want more.

(2) Chocolate appeals to half of the human race – the female half. Beer appeals to the other half of the human race – the male half. Of course some men love chocolate and some women love beer – woe betides those who love both.

(3) Beer is brown – well the best beer is anyway. Lager is a kind of yellow colour whereas bitter has the same hue as a bar of Cadbury’s milk chocolate. Chocolate is also brown. I am not talking about that disgusting white chocolate which is especially made for kids and weirdos. I am weird but at least I am willing to admit that white chocolate is like rhubarb – unpleasant, unnatural and belongs in Hell.

(4) Chocolate makes you fat. If you spend your evenings sitting on a sofa munching a box of Quality Street you will inevitably weigh more than your house. Equally, beer makes you fat. If you spend your evenings sitting in a pub drinking pint after pint of Old Stoatwobbler you will eventually have a beer gut so big that you can build a house on it.

(5) Beer is apparently bad for your body. In small doses it can have health benefits. Sadly by “small dose” the “experts” mean one pint a month. Any more than that and you are a binge-drinking boozer with a leather liver, red blotches and a beer gut you could use as an offensive weapon. Chocolate is also bad for your body. If you plough through box after box of Milk Tray, you will rot your teeth and be so obese that the only way you will be able to leave the house is via the window on the end of a crane.

(6) Beer makes you sick. An evening in the company of several pints of Guinness will eventually cause your body to say “ENOUGH!” and hurl the entire contents of your stomach into the nearest receptacle (the toilet, somebody’s lap, a fruit machine) in a bid to rid itself of the ale. Equally if you spend an entire day trying to eat a shop’s worth of Cadburys your body stomach will say “I don’t care if you like the taste of this chocolate – it’s being evicted”. The good thing is that with chocolate at least you will be compis mentis and have some control over the location of the ejected food matter.

(7) Chocolate makes you feel good. Beer makes you feel good. Why? Because both release endorphins in the brain. When I first heard that I asked Mrs PM why we don’t end up dressing up in weird vivid lycra costumes with a crash helmet and start kicking shit out of bad guys.. She said “Endorphins, you moron, not Mighty Morphin Power Rangers”. So what are endorphins? They basically make you feel good and full of energy. That explains a lot and may also contribute to the reason why beer and chocolate are addictive. Sadly, the endorphins seem to vanish when we over-indulge and start throwing up.

I love beer and I tolerate chocolate – but not together. Chocolate is too sweet and ruins the taste of a good pint. Besides, it’s probably a good thing that I don’t like them equally because I would end up being so big that Tories would start pointing to me and saying “That’s what’s wrong with Britain.”

They probably say that about me anyway.

It is possible to combine beer and chocolate in a bizarre way though. At a beer festival earlier this year, I spotted a “Chocolate Beer”. Mrs PM was with me and she said “OOH!! I have to try some of that.”

Me and my mates grimaced and thought that it was an unholy alliance. We weren’t so appalled that we didn’t want to try it though. Mrs PM obliged and gave me a swig.

At first I thought, yes – it really DOES taste like chocolate.

Sadly, that’s about as far as the positives went before being swamped by the negatives. After the initial chocolate buzz the taste of the beer burst through leaving a totally unpleasant bittersweet taste in my mouth that made me feel slightly queasy. Worse, the colour of the beer wasn’t the most alluring thing I have ever seen; a kind of dark diarrhoea brown.

Mrs PM struggled on and by the end of it, her verdict was “I’m never drinking that again.”

This just goes to show that two rights can make a wrong.

Leave the beer in the pub, to enjoy with your mates, and the chocolate at work to get you through the day – especially if served by senior managers with a nice cup of coffee.

Nothing is sweeter than that.

Mr Clumsy

I am not clumsy by nature.

There are people out there who may not believe this and, sadly, there is evidence suggesting that I can be a lumbering oaf with all of the coordination of a drunken donkey.

Take last Thursday for example.

I was invited to the Stockport Beer Festival. It was Thursday, so initially I wasn’t too keen. Drinking on a “school night” is bad practice, typically, as the repercussions the next day can be quite nasty. Hangovers at my time of life are monsters and torture me for days.

I decided to go late and leave early – a sound plan in theory.

The event was held at Stockport County Football ground, which is about four miles from where I live and a bus ride away. I arrived at about 8:45.

Beer festivals are fun and great for people watching. Once you have paid your entrance fee, you buy your souvenir glass and sample all wonder of real ales from around the region. For those who like weird drinks, they also have a fairly chunky selection of perries and ciders that can quite literally blow your head apart if you have too much.

I stick to beer – I know its strength and I know how many I can have before I have to stop.

The real ale connoisseurs who attend these festivals can be quite weird; they treat their beer like wine and urge people to sip it and savour it. You are expected to buy half pints so you can sample as much as you can before falling over. Most of these people have beer guts so big that small moons orbit them.

And some of their beards are something else.

I met a couple or mates and a few work colleagues and had an enjoyable hour or two sipping various beers with names like Black Mamba, Nutty Slack, White Nancy, Sworn Secret, Wren’s Nest, Tiger Rut, Silver Magnet, Dizzy Blonde, Village Idiot, Brassed Off, Battle Cruiser, Blond Witch, Alchemist Ale, Weapons of Mouth Destruction, Matron’s Delight, Dragon Slayer, Old Stoatwobbler and Monkman’s Slaughter.

At around 10:40 I decided I’d had enough and started the fifteen minute walk back to Stockport Bus Station to catch my bus home.

Sadly, I was walking a little too slowly and realised that I would miss my bus if I didn’t run. I was carrying my souvenir pint pot in a plastic bag. I decided to run.

Running is something I used to do quite a lot and I was quite fast in my youth. Sadly, these days, I am neither fast nor fit. Something kicked in and I managed to sprint to the station with not much trouble. At the far end of the station I could see my bus. I would make it.

At this point my clumsy gene kicked in. As I ran across a kerb, I tripped.

I was hurtling at quite a fast pace and realised what had happened. I found myself lurching forward. Had I not been carrying a pint pot I might have made it with my pride intact. Half my mind was determined to save the glass so I foolishly adjusted my body so that I didn’t smash it.

I found myself careering out of control towards the floor, my arms whirling like a demented windmill. The laws of physics refused to yield and I sprawled headfirst into the pavement, the shattering of my pint pot ringing in my ears as it lost the battle with the concrete.

The word that escaped my lips, dear reader, is not one that I would like to publish in this post.

My bus was still there and I had to reach it, so I got up and started running again. That was when I discovered the consequences of my fall.

My right hand had scraped along the concrete and taken the top layer of skin off an area the size of a 2p piece.

My right elbow was bruised.

My right elbow was grazed.

My left knee was bruised.

My left hand (the hand carrying the pint pot, the hand that had failed in its sworn duty to protect the pint pot, the hand that is probably pissed off with me because I am right handed) was injured.

The shattered glass had escaped the bag and cut my left hand in a few places. I stood up and started running again and noticed blood splattering as I ran.

I stopped and stared at my hand in disbelief.

There was no pain – just blood. It looked as if I had dipped my hand in a bucket of the stuff.

I made the decision to continue my run for the bus but as I did so, I identified the cuts and sucked them to try to stem the bleeding.

I reached the bus just as he was pulling off but he took pity on me and let me on.

With my bloody left hand hidden behind my back, I managed to extract the coins I needed with my right hand (which was also cut) and paid the driver.

I ran upstairs hoping that there was nobody there. There wasn’t – I was alone.

I examined my still bleeding left hand and realised that all of the blood was coming from just two cuts. The rest of my injuries were minor scratches.

I found a discarded newspaper and tore strips off it to add pressure to the cuts – and thankfully after a few minutes they stopped.

All of this was too late because by now my jeans were blood-stained and I had nothing to wash the blood off my hands.

When the bus arrived at my destination, I plunged my hands into my pockets and walked downstairs. There was a trail of blood spots from my injured hand.

I thanked the driver who stared at me as if I had just walked off a spaceship and said “Take me to your leader.”

When I arrived home, I was about to tell Mrs PM the entire sorry tale but she beat me to it.

“WHAT’S HAPPENED TO YOU?” she said looking shocked.

It was then I caught my reflection in the mirror; my mouth was covered in blood. I looked like a crazed vampire. No wonder the bus driver was terrified.

My attempts at sucking my wounds had deposited great smears of blood onto my face.

Mrs PM thought I had been in a fight with a rabid vampire.

I cleaned up my wounds and as I applied a couple of plasters I told my sorry tale to Mrs PM. She struggled between sympathy and trying not to laugh.

The next day at work, my colleagues were merciless.

“You drunken oaf!”

“HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! You idiot! HA HA HA HA HA HA!”

And I swear that I wasn’t drunk, dear reader. Even my beloved children were merciless.

My eldest lad, who has just turned eighteen pointed at me, laughing and said “FAIL!!!!!!”

My youngest lad just laughed.

So there you have it, dear reader. Mr Clumsy is alive and well and living in Manchester.

What lessons have I learned? A simple one :

NEVER RUN FOR A BUS WHEN YOU ARE CARRYING A BEER FESTIVAL PINT POT. THERE IS ALWAYS A TAXI AROUND.

The truth is that smashing up my souvenir pint pot hurts more than the wounds or my pride.

What a pillock I am.