Boozing Lifestyle

The Pub

Forget your house, that is where you sleep. Your local pub is where you ‘live’. Pubs are wonderful places. The sheer variety and individual character of pubs means that the experienced boozer (even if you are from a different area of the country) can quickly settle in and feel instantly at home with others devoted to ‘the cause’.

Oliver Reed was quoted as saying ‘You meet a better class of people in pubs’. Certainly true, what better place to meet and converse with new people, play games or discuss business. If you’re a true boozer, you’ll almost certainly meet your ideal partner in the pub (although this may be down to simply the fact you seem to spend half your waking life there).

The boozing man selects a ‘local’ with great skill. Generally it is best to experiment by going to as many pubs as is convenient (i.e. less than 10 minutes walk), then waiting to see what the landlord’s reaction is as you walk in. If you ever walk in and the landlord starts pouring you a pint before you even say ‘hello’, then you know you’ve found your true spiritual home.

The Toast

The traditional toast involves the raising and consumption of a pint of British ale to the rapport of "cheers!" and "to your very good health!".

Ancient wisdom has it, that a toast creates a 'positive aura' and brings good fortune to those 'toasted'. Well we certainly enjoy it anyway.

Please use discretion, excessive 'toasting' can induce dizziness, bizarre behavior and loss of short-term memory.

Gentlemens' sporting pursuits

Never ever, take part in this shocking misuse of supermarket equipment.

'Trolley surfing', a national sport for alcoholics, is not surfing in the true upright sense, more like body-boarding. I have been ‘surfing’ in some unique and interesting locations. The highlight to date must be going past Tony Blair’s old house in Islington, at rather high speed.

Control of ‘the carriage’ (particularly on a steep gradient) takes a lot of balance and a keen sense of direction, in order to avoid careering off the side of the road into parked cars and pedestrians.

I have also attempted ‘transportation’ with abandoned furniture (which I subsequently attempted to auctiond on eBay). This has had varying degrees of success.

What to do if it’s late at night and you have run out of booze

Of course, an absolute nightmare scenario for the thirsty drunk. You have various options:

If you’re stuck at home – fear not! You have probably prepared for this in advance. The mere thought of a house devoid of alcohol is enough to scare the seasoned boozer to go out and buy a cheap bottle of plonk and stash it ‘for emergencies’. Shame you can’t actually remember where you put the damn thing.

Small late-night grocery stores/off-licenses can be your saviour, but never ever stoop so low to as to bribe shop keepers into serving you booze or to attempt to rummage for left-overs in recycling bins or under park benches.

Go to a late-night pub.
Late licensed pubs are life-saving establishments in a sea of sobriety.
You get to mix with the twilight world of boozing society, most of whom are chaps who claim they have no choice but to be there.

We were once told by a surprisingly respectful-looking (although clearly ruined) businessman “you want to know why I’m here?... because last week I got f**king MARRIED!”

Gentlemens' sporting pursuits (part 2)

Table football - an alternative (and slightly safer) sport for piss-artists. You can purchase an excellent football table in the children’s floor of any large department store, for a very reasonable price (starting prices are just £50).

You may have to be sober in order to construct the table correctly. This is why the British Booze Football Table initially had some of the players the wrong way round.

As opposed to board games or ‘sporting games’ such as Subbuteo, there is nothing to set up, you can booze perfectly normally whilst playing, and your skills are instantly transferable to the bigger tables which are frequently available in drinking establishments. The next time you’re in the pub, challenge your boss to a game, try not to smirk too much as you see a big promotion (or a P45) heading your way.

How to play British Booze rules table football:

• For the ultimate skill and reflex test, you must play with 2 footballs at the same time.
• No spinning, unless it’s controlled. From our experience, tactical play outwits random spinning.
• You must drink constantly whilst playing. And the loser has to drink shots of vodka, or eat raw chillies.
• If you ever flick the ball through both entry holes on the side of the table (very unlikely, but bound to happen sooner or later), you then just have to win the game in order to claim a ‘free night out on the piss from your loser friend’.

The art of getting nailed and selling rubbish on eBay

In November 2003 (coincidentally the day that England beat Australia to win the Rugby world cup), British booze went on a colossal 18 hour boozing session (9am to 3am), all over central London. Whilst staggering home with a kebab, we found this giant ‘Tiger’ lying in a North London street in the pouring rain. We subsequently auctioned it on eBay. ‘Toby’ grabbed attention to the score of 600 hits on the auction page, and sold for a very respectable £2.35.

A pissed-up chap finds nothing more amusing than finding something obscure (for free) in the street. Remember that road-signs are the property of the Government, and more to the point, are the targets of drunken ‘students’. A mature boozer targets something he can physically sell on for a profit (and amusement) without fear of retribution, knowing that it is so crap and useless that it can only be something which was clearly abandoned by previous owners.

‘Things we find when we’re absolutely nailed’ has now become a staple part of our British Booze eBay auctions. Other items which have previously been up for grabs include an armchair with no legs, a locked and dented empty office filing cabinet (with no keys) and a rotten wooden dog kennel.

British Booze has also created more serious range of 'concept auctions', including bottles of Thames water and Royal Air from outside Buckingham Palace. This (temporarily) grabbed significant media attention last year, and was featured on BBC Radio 2 news and in The Sun newspaper.

Music to booze to

Forget party music and cheese, the boozing man is a more sophisticated animal.

If you’re at home and contemplative (brandy) then classical or ambient/chillout music is a must.

If you’re in an upbeat mood (beer) then progressive house or electronica is the best.

If you’re nailed (neat vodka) then phat breakbeat, classic rock or even a dash of Vagner – "Ride of the Valkyries" with the windows wide open is excellent, and is great for initiating spontaneous parties with your hardcore boozing neighbours.

Brewing your own beer

The ultimate artistic statement from the seasoned man of leisure, this can also be extremely cheap and doesn’t always taste like dishwater. 40-pint kits are available from your local Boots store, and the purchase of all the tubes and siphons will conjure up memories of your childhood experiments with weedkiller and chemistry sets. Buy a clean/unused dustbin to brew the booze in.

Previous experiments undertaken by British Booze have lead to some interesting results, including beer of 14.5% alcohol with a 2-inch layer of sediment.

Never ever brew your beer inside the house, do it in the shed or greenhouse. The smell is initially revolting when it starts fermenting, and it becomes progressively more difficult to resist drinking it as it becomes more beer-like. We also had the unfortunate experience of the cat falling in it, halfway through the fermentation process. The poor chap waded out of the dustbin, then went to sleep for about 2 days, purring extremely loudly. Luckily the poor puss was not permanently damaged, although he did smell pretty bad for a few days and does still sniff around whenever beer is opened at the table.

We (and about 15 other unwitting people) drank the beer at a party, and it was horrible. I tried not to grin too much when somebody commented that it tasted like ‘cats-piss’.

Sleeping in public areas

Your urge to stay in the pub until closing time, albeit extremely worthy and demonstrative of your exceptional drinking skills, has left you stranded 50 miles from your house. You’re not prepared to pay an exorbitant amount of cash for a taxi ride home and you have pride, so resorting to a hotel or the YMCA is out of the question. Besides, sleeping rough will leave you with more money to spend on booze.

Railway stations are unsavoury, but you have the advantage of being able to make an early morning get-away on the first train, and you may even be able to sneak back into your house and into bed before your partner wakes up. You’ll have to find a hidden spot, such as disused junction box or a bench at the end of a long platform, otherwise British Transport Police will provide you with a rather uncomfortable bed for the night themselves.

Parks or forests are a good bet, although it is always best to make sure you are definitely on your own before you grab some shut-eye. Do not attempt to light fires and toast marshmallows, unless you are in remote part of Scotland.

For the true boozing commandos, try to climb up a tree and erect a hammock (as tested by a certain member of British Booze in Hyde Park in July 2003). Extra points if you can construct a lean-to from your suit jacket.

I'm never drinking anything again... ever!

Ha! I have lost count of the number of times that we have witnessed mere mortals succumbing to this blasphemy and downright lie.

We’ve all been there - waking up at 2 in the afternoon with a throbbing head and pasty mouth, uttering the words “Urghhh…I feel like the floor of a taxi cab” or “Urghhh…have I been eating Ghandi’s sandles?”.

After you get over the initial shock of waking up next to road-sign, a half-eaten kebab or worst still, your smiling ex-girlfriend (or boss), the best thing to do is get up and get back into reality.

Proper boozers always turn their immediate thoughts to food.

Prepare an enormous fry-up, with as little vegetable products as possible (i.e. toast and baked beans). Bacon, sausages, hog’s pudding and scrambled eggs always work an order of magnitude better than Alka-Seltzer.

If you see any left-over booze grab it and consume ferociously. ‘Hair of the dog’ (or possibly ‘hair of the dog’s bollocks’) is an even better remedy for your sorry state.

Sitting outside also helps, although prolonged exposure to the sun (i.e. more than 5 minutes) can cause the seasoned boozer to make a mad rush to the fridge in order to find that carefully hidden bottle of San Miguel.

Regardless, you’ll be back in the pub in less than 2 hours. Besides you’ll need to go back there to pick up your house-keys and wallet which you left in there whilst you were cavorting with ‘Lucy Liu’.

Gentleman's sporting pursuits (part 3 - water sports)

Children's paddling pools are an excellent addition to your garden, and an amazing way to get girls to undress and splash around when they're drunk at your party. You can also have fights with your mates in it. An essential boozing garden-furniture item.

Unfortunately, chlorine or salt is required to prevent the onset of algal growth - when the water goes green the insides can get very slippery and it can end up smelling quite bad too.