Half-eaten Kebab

Have you ever been drunk?

I have – quite a few times, but thankfully not in recent years. Don’t get me wrong – I do like a pint or two but these days I tend to take it easy so that when I do drink I know I can wake up in the morning feeling reasonably fine.

Sadly, in my youth I was easily led and I thought that I was indestructible, especially when it came to the demon drink. I was rarely so drunk that I couldn’t remember anything but I have been in that position in my youth.

When you are in such a terrible state, weird thoughts go through your head, the biggest one being “I’ll be fine! I can handle another pint!”

Wrong! 

If you are drunk, that is the thought that you should totally dismiss because deep down you know for a fact that when you wake up in the morning your head will feel like Satan himself is hitting it with a lump hammer, your mouth will feel like you have just eaten the contents of a vacuum cleaner bag and your stomach will feel like it is about to explode in a tsunami of half-digested food.  If you have the strength to crawl to the toilet your entire world will spin like a demented spinning top and you will almost certainly be uttering the Hangover Mantra which is:

“NEVER AGAIN!”

Of course when you are in the throes of alcohol-fuelled ecstasy, you have lots of bad ideas. Logic doesn’t seem to enter into your thoughts. If you were sober then you would almost certainly say to your brain “You want me to do WHAT?? No bloody chance!”.

But when you are drunk, your response is “WHAT A GREAT IDEA!!!”.

Before I go on, there is something that any foreign readers must understand. Pubs and drinking are a massive part of British culture (and to a lesser extent Europe too). For example, when I have been to the US, I have been amazed that hanging out in a bar for an entire evening seems to be frowned upon – certainly more so than in the UK where such behaviour is commonplace.

So what good ideas have I encountered when drunk that are really terrible ones?

Have another drink

This is bad because, as I said above alcohol gives you the illusion of indestructibility. In this state you think you are utterly fine until the first light of day brings you back to reality with an enormous crash.

Go for a curry

Indian food is massively popular in the UK and drunk guys will flock to Indian restaurants after a night out because they think that it will satisfy the alcohol-fuelled hunger. Now the problem with a post-drink curry is that first of all Indian restaurants offer even more booze to add to your already saturated brain but worst of all, the bravado of being drunk means that you will almost certainly select the hottest curry on the menu because you think it is a fantastic idea. It isn’t because a hangover with a curry nestling in your stomach is not a good idea. Remember, a really hot curry burns twice; once on the way in and once on the way out.

Chat up a woman

I have fallen foul of this “good idea” many times and have been ritually humiliated. Worse, on one occasion I was out with workmates, including a female friend of mine. While in a pub, she started talking to a lovely young blonde woman who happened to teach her daughters ballet. Sadly, my mind told me to complement this vision of beauty. I walked up to her, in front of my female friend and a lot of workmates and said (I am not making this up): 

“First of all, I’m not coming on to you at all. But having said that, can I just say that you are ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS!!” 

Thankfully, she took it in good stead and said a polite “Thanks” before blanking me out completely. What followed was a tirade of abuse and piss-taking from my work colleagues and, worse, from my female friend who later said “What the phark are you on?” I am still reminded of this even to this day and it happened about twenty years ago!

Buy a kebab

 If you don’t go for a curry, you go for a kebab. Britain is filled with kebab shops, some better than others. When sober, I would never have one because I prefer healthier food. Yet when drunk, it has almost become the law. Kebab shops in the UK are filled with drunk people from around 11pm to much later and I am amazed that people know what to order. One of the problems is that your average kebab is huge and you are incapable of eating the entire thing. This has three possible consequences (and I have seen all three). 

Number one: you leave the half-eaten kebab on the sofa and crawl to bed, only to see it the following morning when your stomach is too delicate to deal with a now rancid stinking half-eaten mess. 

Number two:  Put the half-eaten kebab in the fridge to be finished off for breakfast. This is so wrong because the last thing you want to see when you go to the fridge to get a can of coke to help your hangover, is a half-eaten kebab stinking out your fridge with half-eaten fries that you felt you couldn’t do without. 

Number Three: you fall asleep while eating the kebab and wake up three hours later with your head resting in a mound of spicy meat, fries and rancid salad covered in spicy sauce.

Thankfully, I have grown up a bit and while I still drink, I no longer allow myself to have stupid ideas. That said, I have been known to indulge in a curry or a kebab but, thankfully, with a relatively sober head.

I’ll finish off with a song about a hangover from my collection. Check out the lyrics because they sum up most of the stuff I’ve said in this post.

A Recipe For Disaster

In the past, on this blog, I have tried to give you the impression that I am an intelligent guy.

That is true – but at the same time I can be a bloody idiot.

How do you make a so-called intelligent Plastic Mancunian into an idiot? There are many recipes; here’s one of them I used a long time ago:

INGREDIENTS

One sober young Plastic Mancunian.

One ridiculous set of clothes that are fashionable only in the eyes of the Plastic Mancunian.

One mirror.

Two other sober young friends of the Plastic Mancunian also prepared in ridiculous clothes.

One ATM card.

Several pints of fine English ale (or lager if none is available)

One Friday or Saturday night.

Several expensive pubs in London.

One very expensive night club in London.

A large group of people willing to dance.

One DJ.

One night club bouncer.

Approximately two hours of cheesy music.

Three young ladies who are well out of the league of the Plastic Mancunian and his mates.

Several cheesy chat up lines.

One stupid idea.

One taxi.

One time machine.

PREPARATION METHOD

(1) Using the time machine, transport the ingredients back to 1985. It doesn’t matter if the year is 1984 or 1985 – that should be close enough.

(2) Dress the Plastic Mancunian in the set of ridiculous clothes and stand him in front of the mirror until he believes that he is sex on a stick. This should take approximately two minutes.

(3) At this moment, take the pre-dressed friends and put them and the Plastic Mancunian into the first expensive pub in London.

(4) Soak the idiots in a couple of pints of beer.

(5) When the conversation starts to get silly and the three young men start to turn into idiots, transfer them to another expensive pub in London.

(6) At this point, you may need to apply the ATM card, particularly if any of the idiots have run out of cash.

(7) Repeat steps (4) to (6) for several hours until the three young men are fully matured idiots.

(8) Apply the ATM card one more time.

(9) Transfer the three idiots to the very expensive and preheated London night club.

(10) Apply the ATM card again because the idiots didn’t get enough cash.

(11) At this point the idiots may realise that they are about to make a huge error in judgement. If this is the case, liberally apply more beer in another pub. That idea will soon diminish.

(12) Apply the ATM card again if necessary.

(13) Before reaching the next stage, the three idiots should be well-oiled and may even be rat-arsed. Ideally they should all be able to string together a coherent sentence and understand each other – just.

(14) Place the idiots outside the very expensive night club in London at the back of the queue of people who are willing to dance.

(15) Slowly place the group of people into the night club for just enough time to irritate the Plastic Mancunian. Two minutes should suffice.

(16) Before putting the idiots into the night club, make sure that the Plastic Mancunian has been allowed to exchange words with the night club bouncer.

(17) Do not allow the night club bouncer to mutate into a violent moron – that will ruin the recipe. If necessary subdue the Plastic Mancunian with a diversionary tactic; pop the three young ladies into the night club (though they can be applied later).

(18) Once in the night club, apply liberal lashings of lager. Be careful not to overdo it at this stage.

(19) Mix the DJ, the cheesy music and the group of people willing to dance until the atmosphere is HOT, HOT, HOT!!!!

(20) Take the stupid idea and mix it with the idiot that is thriving best in the lager. The best idea to use is Impersonate the Dancer, whereby one of the idiots tries to exactly copy one of the more bizarre dancers for one whole song.

(21) When the idiot has finished dancing, and assuming he hasn’t been attacked by the target of his impersonation, he must select another idiot to impersonate another dancer. At this point it may be necessary to apply yet more beer and if you have any, some Dutch courage.

(22) Repeat steps (20) and (21) until each idiot has played the game or until the threat of violence has reached alarming levels.

(23) At this point, mix in the three young ladies who are out the idiots’ league (if not added already) and liberally pour in as many cheesy chat up lines to add a little spice. My personal favourite is

Hey Doll. Have you got a license for those eyes?

Nevertheless,  

Fancy a snog?

will do if all else fails.

(24) There may be a few slapped faces at this point but that will add to the pleasure; the idiots won’t feel the pain; they should be totally sozzled at this point.

(25) Continue to cook at a high temperature until the idiots start to wilt or the three ladies resort to more extreme forms of violence.

(26) Now transfer the idiots to a taxi, applying the ATM card for one final time if necessary. There is no need to worry about the three young ladies at this stage; they will have disposed of the idiots in suitable fashion. The three idiots will be saying “Yeerrr my bessst mate!” to each other anyway.

(27) Leave the resulting mess to rest overnight.

When you have finished in the morning, you will have three colossal hangovers, no memory, no cash, no egos and lots of embarassment all nicely wrapped up in the stupidity of youth with maybe a little vomit on the side.

Survival Of The Drunkest?

The human race is evolving and it is all down to alcohol.

You may think that I have lost my mind, dear reader, but if you read on you will find yourself agreeing with me.

I am certain of this.

Well, there is an element of doubt.

Okay – you may NOT agree with me and you might end up considering me to be a weird arse. Nevertheless, please indulge me because I know I’m right.

Well maybe – perhaps!

Picture the scene. You have been invited to a major event that will involve drinking, dancing and generally revelling in a night club, or some similar debauched establishment, and you are preparing yourself.

You want to turn heads.

You want members of the opposite sex to fall in love with you.

You want the world to be talking about you tomorrow.

There is only so much you can do, physically. If, like me, you look like a decrepit old grape, then the task is almost impossible. If you are a woman, no matter how wonderfully attractive you are, you will still want to spend approximately six hours perfecting your appearance.

That is a given and has nothing to do with evolution. That is human pride and the need to be loved. And we all need to be loved (well, apart from Piers Morgan or Sarah Palin perhaps).

The evolutionary part is the way our bodies have developed to cope with the effects of imbibing too much alcohol. Some of these evolutionary traits are harmful - so I guess maybe you could say that there is a paradox here – we are evolving and regressing at the same time.

Of course, not everybody goes out planning to drink a lake of beer and wine. Most people know their limits and can enjoy themselves responsibly.

However, there are those who opt to break the record for the largest amount of alcoholic beverages ever consumed and there are also those who forget about responsibility and simply go with the flow without realising that they too are consuming a small river of beer.

And this is where evolution kicks in – and also regression.

The evening has started and you are surrounded by your friends. Everybody has had a couple of beers and the conversation is flowing. This is when the first evolutionary trait suddenly kicks in – the Beer Brain.

The Beer Brain is responsible for unleashing that inner potential that exists in all of us. When the Beer Brain is activated, entrepreneurial ideas that exist in a dusty old chest within our minds are suddenly released. The fact that this chest has a sign on it saying “DO NOT OPEN – EVER!!!” is completely ignored. Alcohol gives us the ability to shatter that lock and unleash all of our potential on the unsuspecting crowd. There will be those who are sceptical about this – but I am certain that in that chest there is a massive idea waiting to be implemented.

Something like, perhaps, the spaghetti mask. When eating spaghetti and you slurp it up, the end flies around spraying tomato sauce all over the place and, more importantly, all over your glasses (this is painful for me I can tell you). So you wear a metal mask with a mouth hole that takes all the spray as you slurp.

What about a homing sock? Each pair of socks comes with a remote control and an in-built locator device. When the button is pressed on the remote control, the sock comes to you – you will never lose a sock again.

Maybe a pair of underpants that you can turn into a toilet at the push of a button (something like this would be useful for me on my forthcoming trip to China).

How about an ironing machine? All you have to do is throw you clean but frazzled clothing into a machine, wait a while and extract the neatly ironed product. Some men may say that they have a device that goes the whole hog – called a washing basket. All they have to do is pile their dirty washing in the washing basket and, hey presto – in a couple of days it is hanging up crisp and clean in your wardrobe. Sadly, I don’t own such a basket and have to endure the full manual cycle – including the ironing.

After the Beer Brain, comes the Beer Ego. The Beer Ego transforms you into the greatest person who has ever lived – all it takes is a little more beer. Suddenly, when the Beer Ego detonates, you are the world’s greatest dancer, the world’s greatest conversationalist and the world’s most attractive person – all rolled into one. You can do no wrong. Eyes turn whenever you hit the dance floor and every member of the opposite sex wants to have your babies.

What about this poor fella?

Yes - that is me under the influence of the Beer Ego playing my guitar to the Drifters at New Year.

And, of course, there are the Beer Goggles that help you to select an equally attractive mate. The most hideous creature known to man can in an instant become the most attractive person on the planet:

Somebody once told me that Beer Goggles help ugly people get partners. It clearly didn’t work in my case, because Mrs PM really is lovely (mind you – I think she wears her Beer Goggles permanently).

Anyway, having solved the world’s problems with your Beer Brain, charmed everybody with your Beer Ego and used your Beer Goggles to grab yourself a date with a member of the opposite sex, it is now time to go home.

The amount of beer it takes to activate the Beer Brain, Beer Ego and Beer Goggles does take its toll and here, dear reader, is where the final evolutionary miracle occurs. You have two choices:

(1) The Homing Device – this is a built in six sense that somehow manages to inform your addled brain that you have, perhaps, consumed just a little bit too much alcohol. This fabulous mental device guides you in the direction of the exit, fending off all cries of “You can’t go yet, Dave,” with a dismissive wave of the hand and a heartfelt “OMGUWINUM”. This ingenious evolutionary part of your brain can direct you out of the pub or club and start you off on your way home. Mind you, it isn’t totally dependable, in which case a second ingenious evolutionary advancement comes into play:

(2) The Beer Scooter – The problem with the Beer Scooter is that nobody knows exactly how it works. The Beer Scooter is a miracle. Why?

(a) The Beer Scooter obtains fuel automatically (usually in the form of a large Donner Kebab).

(b) The Beer Scooter gets you home, no matter how much cash you have left after your night out on the town. Some sceptics say that taxis or The Nutty Bus are involved – but I don’t buy it.

(c) The Beer Scooter not only gets you to your front door; it gets you in the house, undressed and into bed. Some advanced humans sometimes even find that the Beer Scooter has provided water to help minimise the inevitable cost of your depraved evening.

So there you have it, dear reader; my theory of evolution due to alcohol and in the past, I have taken advantage of all these evolutionary enhancements. Sadly, they have dulled with age – even my Beer Goggles have stopped working.

Alas, so has my Beer Scooter, though I have found a half-eaten Donner Kebab in the fridge on occasion so perhaps it still works - a bit.

Actually, thinking about it, why on earth would anybody put a half-eaten Donner Kebab in the fridge? If anything is going to induce a violent reaction when you have a hangover it’s going to be a cold half-chewed scraggy lump of unidentifiable meat wrapped in cardboard and covered in “all the dressings – especially the monster strength chilli sauce”.

Perhaps we are regressing back to being apes after all.

Painting the Town Extremely Red

My last post touched briefly on my exploits when out in Manchester with friends applying red paint liberally to the city centre.

And it got me thinking about how much this has changed over the years.

I thought I would present for your fun and enjoyment, dear reader, an account of the first time I had a tussle with alcohol while attempting to paint the town red.

If you are squeamish, stop reading now.

For the rest of you ...

My tussle with alcohol was hardly a fair fight - I lost!

Spectacularly.

Let this be a lesson to you if you are young and foolish as I was then.

Back in 1980 I was an eighteen year old spotty kid with long, bushy and unmanageable hair who was discovering for the first time that it was possible to venture out and, with the aid of alcohol, have a wonderful night of laughter and drunken debauchery.

I had sampled the delights of alcohol briefly and at that age I really didn’t like beer at all.

Despite this, I succumbed to peer pressure and along came that fateful day when I first got really, really drunk.

At the time, I was in my second year in the sixth form at school, preparing for university but my best mate at the time had left a year or so earlier and joined a building company.

To protect his identity I shall simply call him S.

Unfortunately for S, his job only lasted a year before he was made redundant with a few other mates, some of whom were in their early twenties. They decided to drown their sorrows with a pub crawl around Walsall town centre and I was invited along.

I had only ever had a couple of beers and I reasoned, foolishly in hindsight, that drinking was easy and it would be fun.

We started at 7 o’clock and aimed to move around the numerous pubs drinking half a pint in each. Because I hated beer, one of the lads suggested I try lager and lime. It was quite pleasant and I thought that this would become my drink of choice.

We visited pub after pub and the more I drank the happier I became. I started chatting to complete strangers as my inhibitions were washed away in a tsunami of alcohol. I even recall kissing a girl at one stage to raucous cheers from the lads I was with.

I loved it and the fuzzy haze that was beginning to descend made me feel even better.

I was brave.

I was adorable.

I was loved by everybody.

I could conquer the world.

I was absolutely totally and utterly rat-arsed.

As you can imagine the inevitable happened. I recalled being in a certain pub at a certain time and then my mind went blank. It was as if God himself had erased part of my mind. One minute I was in a pub, the next I was in Hell.

I thought I was dying.

With the help of S, my irate mother and my irritated father, I was able to piece together the events of the previous evening.

S and I had walked home and at some point I had fallen over in a pile of mud – the evidence was there in front of me. My jeans were caked in filth and my shirt that had started the evening light blue had become a dirty brown.

I had arrived home and walked into the house where apparently I had said “Hi Mum, I’m off to bed.” Except it hadn’t translated that way – it came out as a drunken vocal splurge and my mum chose that moment to severely bollock me, an act that proved to be a catalyst to the inevitable consequence of drinking far too much.

My next words were “I feel sick!”

She understood that sentence and as I collapsed onto the floor she found a bucket and put my head in it – not one second too soon.

Ten minutes of puking later, my dad arrived home and saw my mum emptying the contents of the bucket down the toilet and cursing me with all of her venomous might.

My dad then made a fatal mistake. He uttered the words that would haunt him for the next 24 hours.

He said “That’s my boy,” and laughed as he carried me to bed.

My mum exploded in rage and had so much to distribute that she shared it equally between my father and me.

She was livid and sleep didn’t subdue the erupting volcano within her.

Next day she screamed at me from the moment I opened my eyes.

My head was pounding so much that I thought it was going to explode. I spent the entire morning retching over the toilet.

The phrase “Calling God on the great white telephone” had never been more apt.

My stomach was empty, yet I continued to puke air – this was a new and hellish experience for me and my stomach was in agony. My throat burned with fury and my headache was so bad that I thought my brain was trying to break out of my skull.

To make matters far worse, my mum continued to vent her spleen. There is nothing worse than being screamed at by an irate woman when you have hangover so evil that Satan himself would shy away from it.

I wasn’t the only target of her wrath. My poor innocent father was verbally ripped apart for laughing and uttering his ill-chosen words. He was a laid back guy but even he started shouting at me as he buckled under the onslaught.

“Look what you’ve done. You come home pissed and it’s ME who has to suffer.”

“But Dad – I’m dying here – and she’s screaming at me too.”

“I have NO sympathy!”

I stayed in bed being plied with water by my angry mum for the rest of the day and only surfaced in the evening. Thankfully, by this stage my mum had decided that she wasn’t going to speak to me any more (which was a major bonus).

My dad glared at me – because she hadn’t stopped haranguing him.

“It’s YOUR fault,” she hissed. “If you didn’t drink then he wouldn’t be copying you.”

I sat in silence, nursing a pint of water and struggling to eat some toast.

If you think my tale of woe is bad, you should hear what happened to S. Actually, allow me to tell you. His story is far worse than mine.

I heard about his exploits from his younger brother who laughed so much that he nearly had an accident.

S had arrived home, giggling like a baby. Unlike me, he had vague recollection of what had happened on the way home. We had decided in our drunken wisdom to take a short cut across a building site that was so far away from the street that it was absolutely pitch black.

I had been barely able to stand up let alone walk and soon the inevitable happened; I fell into a filthy and very muddy puddle.

The scary thing is that I honestly do not remember this at all.

When S arrived home, still laughing at my expense, his parents were alerted by what they thought was a maniac. They were convinced that a hellhound had arrived on their doorstep and was trying to break down the door. S could not manage to get his key in the door. His dad opened the door and S collapsed inside the house still laughing while trying to tell his parents about my fall. His words made no sense and eventually his irate father carried him upstairs and put him into bed where he fell asleep.

Mother Nature decided that she had to be cruel to be kind and the inevitable tsunami of vomit announced to S that he needed to get to his own great white telephone in the bathroom as quickly as possible. Sadly, he only made it as far as the window, which he somehow managed to open before chundering into the back garden all over his mother’s prized flower beds.

To make matters worse, he then decided to go to the toilet to relieve himself and somehow managed to stumble into his brother’s bedroom where he chose to urinate all over the floor.

His brother woke up and screamed “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”, waking up his parents in the process. They rushed into the room, switched the light on and saw S standing in a puddle of urine with vomit dribbling down his chin and still holding his todger.

Needless to say, I didn’t see S for two days; neither of us felt well enough to hang out.

I very nearly became tee-total after that. I went to the pub with S and other mates a week or two late and they howled with laughter as they heard our stories.

I drank coke for six months before I plucked up the courage to try lager and lime once more.

I have been drunk since then (obviously) but that first time sticks in my memory because it was so painful.

I have learned my lesson, albeit slowly but have never since been in a situation where I cannot remember getting home. There have always been flashes of memory and the beer scooter has always been there for me.

I often wonder what would have happened had I become teetotal. I have encountered many people who don’t drink because of incidents with alcohol and based on that first experience I can’t say that I blame them.

Common sense now prevails and apart from a few lapses in judgement I tend not to go overboard any more.

Besides, at my age, even the mildest hangovers last for days and it takes a relatively small quantity to spark one into existence.

Added to that I simply cannot take the pain any more.

What a sorry old git I am.

An Englishman On Holiday

I am a proud Englishman and I am a proud Briton. I love my country and I love my island. I love the Welsh and Scots who share the island with me and I love the Irish who live on the neighbouring island.

However, there are times when I try my best to avoid other British people, something you may think is difficult considering the fact that there are 60 million of us crammed into an area of roughly 81,000 square miles (that’s 750 people per square mile).

It’s not the British people on the island that I worry about; it is a minority of my fellow countrymen who travel abroad.

A lot of Brits are perfectly sane people until they arrive at the airport to go abroad. Once they pass through customs and find themselves airside, a switch flips inside the brains of a few and they mutate into something that can be quite embarrassing - the British tourist.

Most people in the world let their hair down a little bit when they go on holiday (I have been known to once or twice). The only problem is that there are a few British people do so with added gusto. Of the remaining sensible British tourists, there is another bunch that are either naïve or live in a bubble of Britishness, making them behave like obnoxious arses.

For some people, common sense is tossed aside; our normal reserved nature is discarded in favour of a rampant drunken beast. Others simply forget that there is a massive difference between Britain and the rest of the world and approach other cultures in the same way as Godzilla would approach a city on a day he was feeling particularly destructive. To them, the rest of the world should be like Britain.

I have travelled to many countries and I am humbled by the differences between cultures. I embrace them and I respect them. I try to become part of them. If I travel to France, I try to speak French; if I travel to a European country where I do not speak their language, I use a phrase book to get my message across. I have travelled to many diverse countries, including many European countries, Thailand, Russia, Australia, South Africa, Canada, United States and China. In each country I have welcomed our cultural differences and tried my best to be an ambassador for my country.

Sadly, a few of my fellow countrymen are not willing to try to blend in and, worse, others contribute to the ever increasing bad reputation of “Brits abroad”.

The worst offenders I have seen have typically been in Europe. Great Britain is part of Europe, whether we like it or not (personally I love it) and in my humble opinion we should be thankful that we can pop over the sea and find ourselves in fabulous countries like France, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Sweden and Norway. Travel a little further and we can enjoy Greece, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark and many others. They are quite literally on our doorstep.

So why do we have such a problem? Let me give you one or two examples of what I’ve seen and perhaps all will become clear.

I travelled with a group of friends to Palma on the beautiful island of Majorca, in order to celebrate a friend’s 40th birthday. We had a few beers, we had a few meals and we visited some of the lovely places in and around the capital city. One day, we opted to go to Magaluf, mainly out of morbid curiosity. For those who have never heard of Magaluf, it is a seaside resort in Majorca that basically becomes little Britain during the summer months. Throughout that period, fleets of charter flights full of young nutters descend on this small resort with one aim: to drink as much alcohol as they can for as long as they can and cop off with as many members of the opposite sex as they can.. Young men and women mutate into the worst kind of party animals and turn the place into a throbbing drunken cesspit of debauchery. Those who avoid the place call it Shagaluf.

Our party took a couple of cabs to Magaluf after breakfast at the hotel and as we approached I was horrified to see a fish and chip shop with the bold claim “Fish imported from Britain”. I was stunned and remarked on this to one of my friends. The cab driver, with a look of sadness on his face, said “Magaluf is an English colony in Majorca. It is horrible.”

I was disturbed by this. We arrived there and found the place almost deserted, which amazed me. It was 11 o’clock and there were only a few people around. “Where is everybody?” I asked. And then it became clear; if you had been up all night partying then you would be in bed. Fair enough, I thought. You can lie in on holiday. But then I noticed the number of clubs and bars; and they weren’t Spanish bars – they were pubs – English and Irish pubs.

And even worse there were pubs boasting that people could watch their favourite soap operas there, beamed in on satellite dishes especially for those who have no desire to become part of a foreign culture, preferring instead to create a pocket of Britain.

“Don’t miss Eastenders or Coronation Street”, it claimed and there were people there watching TV. There was another bar that beamed episodes of “Only Fools And Horses” on an endless loop. People were actually sitting in there laughing at a British comedy show in a bar on a Spanish island.

At lunchtime, we decided to have a beer; we searched around the place for an authentic Spanish bar; we failed and opted to pop into a pub. I marched up to the bar and was greeted by a dark haired tanned barmaid, who I assumed was Spanish. The beers in front of me were all British. I scanned the taps and discovered a Spanish one.

“Cinco cervezas y una coke, por favour” I said in very bad Spanish.

“Which beer do you want?” came the reply is a Cockney accent. I pointed to the Spanish beer, disappointed that I hadn’t had the chance to converse with a Spaniard. The pub was owned and run by British people.

After beer and food we wandered around Magaluf and I saw very few Spaniards. All we saw were British people; if it wasn’t for the sun I would have sworn that we were in Brighton or Margate. I saw cafes and restaurants serving English food; fish and chips were everywhere and people were sitting in pubs watching their favourite TV programmes beamed in from Britain.

The plan had been to spend the day in Magaluf and visit a couple of bars in the evening. By 5 o’clock the party animals had risen and were preparing for another night out. We had had enough so we caught cabs back to Palma to seek out Spanish bars and restaurants ans immerse ourselves in Spanish culture once more.

As we travelled back I thought to myself; if you are going to come to Spain why the hell would you eat fish and chips? Can’t you live without crap TV for a week? What is the point of coming to Spain and demanding all the comforts of home? Why bother travelling all the way to Majorca just to sit in an English pub all day watching endless repeats of a British comedy show? You could stay at home and do that and it would cost you absolutely nothing.

On another occasion, I was working in Amsterdam with a Belgian colleague called Eric. We had selected a traditional Dutch restaurant for our evening meal and sat down prepared to enjoy some Dutch cuisine. As I read the menu and chatted with my Belgian friend, I heard a loud English voice from the other side of the restaurant and cringed.

“Excuse me! EXCUSE ME! Do you have any Worcester Sauce?”

My Belgian friend stared at me in shock. I shook my head in shame. The loudmouth hadn’t finished.

The restaurant was packed and we had been lucky to get a seat. Consequently the waitresses were very busy and couldn’t attend people as quickly as they wanted. However, this vociferous English goon continued.

“I SAID EXCUSE ME!!! CAN I HAVE SOME WORCESTER SAUCE?????”

I looked over and saw a middle aged man, now standing up, and waving his hands in the air like a demented windmill.

“He’s English isn’t he? Are all English people like him?” remarked Eric.

I watched the reaction of the other diners; some laughed at him; others shook their head in disgust; most were shocked and appalled.

Mr Loudmouth hadn’t finished. Clearly he thought he was being ignored so he walked over to the nearest waitress and, tapping her on the shoulder, butted in as she was taking an order.

“Do you have any Worcester Sauce?” he asked rudely, ignoring the couple at the table, his voice still annoyingly loud.

I was totally embarrassed; I was sorely tempted to stand up and say:

“Sit down and have some patience you obnoxious arsehole. You’re giving British tourists a bad name.”

I resisted, mainly because it would have made me look bad and possibly made him worse.

“I’m really sorry,” I said to Eric. “We’re not all like that!”

The waitress, clearly eager to get rid of this muppet, walked over to the kitchen area and rattled a few bottles looking for Worcester Sauce. She found one and handed it to him. Mr Loudmouth must have noticed that he now had a captive audience. Instead of slinking back to his table in shame he held up the bottle of Worcester Sauce in triumph.

“Lea and Perrin’s", he shouted. “The pride of England – guaranteed to add a touch of class to any meal.”

What an utter arse! He failed to realise that most Dutch people speak perfect English and that he had insulted their cuisine by insisting that it required an English sauce to make it worthy to eat. The same waitress returned to her customers and said something in Dutch; the people laughed and stared at the goon.

She then wondered over to our table. Mr Loudmouth had made me so ashamed that I was barely able to place my order for fear of being associated with the obnoxious idiot. I spoke very quietly and then added: “We’re not all like that you know!”

Eric laughed and the waitress smiled kindly.

My final example was again in Spain, this time on a trip to Madrid with Mrs PM. We were sitting at a restaurant and a man walked up and said to the waiter: “Do you sell fags?”

Now then, dear American readers, “fag” is English slang for cigarettes (I realise that it means something completely different in the States), so please don’t imagine that I am going to steer the post in a bizarre direction.

The waiter looked puzzled and said “Que?”

“DO YOU SELL FAGS?” he shouted. “YOU KNOW FAGS! DO YOU KNOW WHAT A FAG IS?”

I stared at Mrs PM and she began to giggle. I was mortified.

“CAN I HAVE SOME FAGS?” his voice was getting louder as if the volume of his voice would somehow make the Spanish waiter somehow, miraculously, be able to speak English.

“FAGS!!!!!” he yelled, miming the act of smoking.

In the end, the waiter asked somebody who spoke English and the man walked away with a packet of cigarettes, muttering something about “bloody foreigners”.

As I said earlier, I travel to foreign places and embrace the culture; I am usually armed with a phrase book; I sample the local cuisine; I imbibe the local beer and wine; I visit places of interest and respect my foreign friends.

It’s a crying shame that a few British people adopt a superior attitude and simply refuse to mingle with interesting foreign cultures. Worse are the young thugs who go on holiday to get drunk and create mayhem.

One of my favourite bands, Thunder, wrote a song inspired by this last group called An Englishman On Holiday. I’ll leave you with the lyrics to that song, which, as funny as the lyrics are, sadly, do ring true.

Laying down in this Spanish bar; that last slammer hit me like a car
I've got the 6 a.m. Balearic blues, can't even focus on my own tattoos
I had a fight with this German guy, I saw him give my little girl the eye
While he was trying hard to be so cool, I hit him with a stool
Oh yes, alright, I'll be going all night
Gonna drink 'til they take me away, I'm an Englishman on holiday
Every year I get to do the same, I meet the boys and get on the plane
We like to sing and shout out "here we go"
'Cos they're the only words that we all know
We've got the loudest shirts you've ever seen
We're gonna take the beaches like a team
We've got so much duty free to drink, enough to float a ship
Oh yeah alright, I'll be going all night
So light the paper, get out of the way, I'm an Englishman on holiday
We never look for trouble at the start, but it always comes our way
We've got our pride and we just can't walk away
This morning I woke up inside a cell
They dragged me screaming out of my hotel
I don't remember what it was I did
But I've got this drummer banging in my head
I've got to get out 'fore I miss the plane, next summer I'll be back again
I'll be fighting for the Union Jack, if they let me back
Oh yes, alright, I'll be going all night
Gonna drink 'til they take me away,
I'm an Englishman on holiday...

Bad Beard Day

A while ago I posted about the trauma that my hair has caused me since the day the first hair broke skin on my head (read about it here). Today I am posting about my failed efforts to grow a beard.

I do not have a beard. Why not? Because I look like a complete and utter arse; because I scare other human beings; because my cats would throw themselves on the gas fire in terror; because Mrs PM would probably drug me and shave it off. I think you get the picture – I would be a weird beard!!

I remember being supremely proud when I spotted the first hair sprouting out my chin at the tender age of fifteen. I felt like running outside and screaming “I can grow a beard; I’m a man!”

The fact that the said hair was about one millimetre long and so blond that it was only visible with a high powered microscope didn’t deter me. I was proud of that little hair. Eventually, it grew a little longer and other hairs followed on my chin and upper lip. They were still invisible to the naked eye but I knew they were there; I could feel them bursting forth. To others they were undetectable; to me they were like Giant Redwood trees.

I let them grow. I was a late developer and my voice was so high pitched it could shatter glass but at least I had a beard (or a patch of bum fluff as my dad called it). As my voice deepened, my facial hair became more noticeable and I had to take the plunge. My dad told me that I looked ridiculous; I had several very soft blond hairs protruding from my face by now. It was time for my first shave.

My dad was very helpful. He watched me as I applied the shaving foam and picked up my first razor (called something like “Gillette Bum Fluff Removal Kit”). He smiled as I lacerated my chin; he patted me on the shoulder with paternal pride as the blood gushed out of my face. I saw a tear in his eye as he handed me bits of toilet roll to stem the flow. He applauded me as I left the bathroom looking like a reject from “The Mummy”.

Thankfully my facial hair was unlike the huge blond forest on my head; it grew very slowly. I only had to shave once in a blue moon and was thankful that the scars managed to heal before I attacked my face with the next razor.

By the time I started university I was shaving regularly (once a month). My fellow students envied me. An Indian friend of mine, already losing his hair at the tender age of nineteen, had to shave every two hours and had a permanent five o’clock shadow. I would have loved a five o’clock shadow.

Then came that fatal day when I decided to experiment with my facial hair. I decided to grow a beard. I felt like a rebel as I missed my shaving day not once but twice. My beard (and I use the word “beard” in its loosest form) was pathetic. I went to the pub with my mates and the subject was discussed.

“Dave, what’s that on your face?”

“Dave, the bottom half of your face looks weird. Are you wearing make up?”

“Beard? What beard?”

Fuelled by alcohol and feeling let down by my friends I decided to return to my room and shave the beard off in the morning. However, being drunk, I foolishly thought “No time like the present”. I shaved and went to bed.

I awoke the next morning and my pillow looked like a bloodbath. I panicked for a full three minutes before the memory of my return from the pub stumbled into my thumping head. Oh no, I thought. I hadn’t had I? Oh yes I bloody well had! With rising panic I looked in the mirror and almost screamed in terror. The lower half of my face was totally lacerated; I had hacked off each and every hair and about a pound of flesh with it. The cuts were separated by dried shaving foam – I hadn’t even washed the bloody soap off (and believe me; it WAS bloody).

My friends were sympathetic and suggested (behind the giggles) that I audition for a part in the latest zombie film.

I began to shave regularly again when the wounds were healed but in my final year at university I decided to go out with a bang; I would graduate with a beard. This time, I ignored my friends and stopped shaving. My beard came on beautifully (or so I thought in my stupidity). It itched like buggery but I was proud of it. I stroked it and fondled it. I was now a proper man. My friends encouraged me.

And then I overheard a conversation.

“Doesn’t Dave look like an arsehole?”

“Yeah! And he thinks that wispy bit of fluff on his face is a beard!”

“Let’s see how long we can keep this up. He actually thinks he looks great!”

And then the final insult:

“Do you want to know what the funniest thing about his beard? It’s GINGER!”

They laughed uproariously. I hated them! I shaved it off immediately (sober this time). And do you want to know the thing that hurt most? I walked into the room afterwards and not one of them noticed that I had shaved – even when I pointed it out.

Common sense prevailed for the next six or so years. I bought myself an electric shaver and removed the foliage from my face daily. Then, in a moment of madness, I stopped shaving. The excuse I used was laziness. However, part of me was curious to discover what my beard would look like after all this time.

It grew fairly quickly; it was very thin on my cheeks and bushy underneath on my neck. I looked ridiculous and my ex-wife begged me to get rid of it. A new set of mates (those who hadn’t seen the previous effort) ridiculed me mercilessly.

“Dave, we’re your mates. Trust us! You look like a stupid geek!”

That was enough! Another beard bit the dust. And so it was for another eight years.

Since then I have grown only one more beard. In 1999, Mrs PM and I were working in Hong Kong and had the chance to spend two weeks touring China. We didn’t fancy hauling heavy suitcases around such a huge country so we decided to travel light. That meant sacrificing many things, including a razor.

After a week my ginger beard had returned. We travelled around tourist areas but at times we ended up in towns where the local Chinese people had rarely, if ever, seen westerners. My blond hair caused fascination – but my beard drew a huge amount of attention. The local Chinese people pointed at me and actually laughed – a whole nation of people thought that a blond pale man with a light ginger beard was hilarious. In bars and restaurants, people stared at me as if I were an alien. I almost bought a razor but resisted. We arrived back in Hong Kong and the guys I worked with (who also had never seen me with a beard) howled when they saw me. Another beard bit the dust soon after.

Thankfully common sense has now prevailed and I have chosen never ever to grow another beard (intentionally that is). If I had a beard now, every day would be a bad beard day. At least, with the aid of a razor, I have total control over my facial hair and my beard will never again see the light of day. Besides, the thought of being drugged and having my face lacerated by Mrs PM fills me with dread.

One Night In Wan Chai

Waking up with a hangover is a very unpleasant experience. I been afflicted by hangovers quite a few times in my life and have come to realise that the older you get, the more powerful the effects. In my youth, I would wake up with a headache and a feeling of nausea. The headache would feel like a lazy woodpecker tapping a rhythm in time with my heartbeat – annoying but nothing more – and would be easily curable with an aspirin. The nausea would be overwhelmed by a good old full English breakfast. By lunchtime I would be human again.

Now, in my mid-forties, hangovers are dreadful. The woodpecker has been replaced by an army of maniacs with road drills; the nausea is now a tsunami of gut-wrenching mayhem. The cures are the same but the effects last longer.


Why am I telling you this? Because on our third day of our recent holiday to Hong Kong I woke up with a hangover. Combined with my age and the effects of jet lag, the hangover took on a life of its own, beating me up relentlessly and mercilessly. Mrs PM and I had planned to spend the day roaming around the wonderful city. The excesses of the night before put paid to that, not least because we had slept until one o’clock in the afternoon. The only consolation was that Mrs PM (who is incidentally seven years younger than me) was just as bad.

How did this come to pass? How did a supposedly sensible and mature man like me allow myself to get so horribly drunk? I made a mistake – I allowed the teenager in me to take control.

It all started off so innocently. We had vowed to attempt to beat the jet lag and stick to our rough plan. Ten years ago, during a three month stint working in Hong Kong, we used to visit numerous restaurants and bars in Causeway Bay and Wan Chai. Our plan was to have a dignified meal in Causeway Bay and pop to Wan Chai to visit the Old China Hand and perhaps have a beer or two in another bar somewhere before retiring sensibly to bed at a reasonable hour.

It all started so well …

The meal was very lovely, a nice steak in a restaurant in Times Square in Causeway Bay. Mrs PM and I chatted about old times in this wonderful city, remembering favourite restaurants that had disappeared, others that were still there and reminisced about our first few weeks together.

After the meal, I noticed that it was getting late (around ten o’clock) so I suggested paying a visit to one of my favourite old haunts in Wan Chai, an Australian bar called Carnegie’s, for a night cap. Mrs PM concurred and later we found ourselves stepping out of the MTR station on Lockhart Road. To my delight, Carnegie’s was still there and still rocking as it used to. What’s more, they had a promotion on vodka, which proved to be very appealing to Mrs PM and to me too, since alcohol prices in Hong Kong aren’t cheap.

I had a beer and Mrs PM had vodka and cranberry juice. The rock music was loud, the atmosphere was vibrant and the clientele had started dancing on the bar and generally having a good time. I remembered good times from my time there and was captivated and consumed by the atmosphere. Before I knew it I had ordered another beer, then another.

Eventually we ran out of cash and, led astray by the alcohol, I volunteered to find an ATM, leaving Mrs PM to enjoy her drink.

For those of you who don’t know, Wan Chai is a very lively area and also full of strip clubs and girly bars. I was a solitary male, walking around on my own, searching for an ATM. To the women trying to attract men into the strip clubs and girly bars, I was prey. I walked past one such bar with an old woman sitting outside persuading men to come in. When she saw me, she leapt off her seat, grabbed my arm and tried to haul me into her club. Waiting at the door was a voluptuous young Chinese women with open arms waiting to ensnare me and drag me into her web of debauchery. I panicked and tore my arm away from the old woman screeching apologetic excuses. I managed to get away but before I had walked five yards, another old woman from another girly bar had launched herself in my direction. Somehow I managed to stumble away from her before she grabbed my arm. I’m sure that never used to happen in Wan Chai ten years ago.

Eventually I found an ATM and returned to the safety of Carnegie’s where I related the tale of my narrow escape to Mrs PM who, in deep sympathy, laughed her head off. At this point I encountered a drunk Australian who walked up to me, clapped me on the back and said “Jimmy! What are you doing here?”

“My name’s not Jimmy,” I replied.

“Bloody hell,” he slurred. “You look just like Jimmy. Are you sure you’re not Jimmy?”

“Positive,” I replied with a smile.

“You look just like a bouncer I know called Jimmy,” he continued. “Are you sure you’re not Jimmy?”

His mates joined in, trying to convince me that I was indeed an Australian bouncer called Jimmy. Eventually I returned to Mrs PM and she laughed at my expense for the second time that night. I can see her point; I do not possess any of the qualities that a bouncer requires, such as build, aggression, height and strength, plus, despite evidence to the contrary, I do have a personality. I could possibly be a bouncer but only at a club for children under ten – and even then I might struggle if one or two ate too much sugar.

Back in Wan Chai, we were having such a good time, that we decided to visit another old haunt, an Irish pub called Delanie’s, where we had another quiet drink. Across the road from there was a lively bar called Amazonia, featuring a live band covering hits by the Beatles. This was too enticing to walk past. As we settled down with yet another beer, a new band appeared playing classic rock hits. I was struck by the number of men in the bar, my age or older, who were cavorting with young Chinese women – it looked ridiculous so we decided to return to Carnegie’s for the infamous “one for the road”.

I have no idea how many more we had or what time we left. I do have hazy memories of being in a taxi and listening to the driver ranting about how terrible it is to be a taxi driver in Hong Kong.

As we left the taxi, the teenager within retired for the night leaving the mature person back in charge, giving me the opportunity to buy two bottles of water from the 7-11 next to the hotel. I knew we had had far too much to drink and would benefit from quaffing a large quantity of water. Thank goodness there was a sensible part of my addled alcohol-soaked brain still working.

The following morning (afternoon), as I prised my tongue from the roof of my mouth with my toothbrush, stared at the creature in the mirror with wild hair and bloodshot eyes and fought the hangover with every weapon at my disposal (water, aspirin, self-pity), I began to regret my over-indulgence. Mrs PM was also feeling very sorry for herself.

United in pain we faced our hangovers and ventured out of the hotel to Lan Kwai Fong where we found a pub that served English breakfasts all day. Armed with bacon, eggs, sausage, toast, gallons of orange juice and coffee, we did battle and eventually won. We were able to face the day as human beings – or in reality, two aliens pretending to be human beings. Our hangovers dissipated and we reflected on our night in Wan Chai.

We both agreed that we had overdone it. That teenager inside me has a lot to answer for. But, I tell you what – Mrs PM and I both agree - we had had a fabulous night.