drinking Archive

In Britain you never have to explain why you drink. You do have to explain why you don’t drink. Because it is not normal. The norm is to drink. There must be something in the British psyche which is making people to want to be inebriated for large parts of their lives.

San Antonio was a depressing affair. A tacky enclave of the worst of Britain. Full of people dumping the worst of their homeland on a paradise mistaking idiocy for hedonism. This is the best description I ever heard of the young British on holidays. On a Vice documentary about Ibiza. And more:

“People drink so much because it’s our culture,” adds Lawrence. “The sun comes out and you go to a beer garden. It’s what we do. Everything is just an excuse to drink. Life is hard for everybody, so it’s nice to have an escape.” […] It’s easy to be judgmental about Peters’

The English comedienne, Dawn French, caused a stir when she spoke out against “ladette culture”, the British scourge abroad. Here are some of her comments about seeing a programme on lasses “on the lash” in Ibiza (for Ibiza read Mallorca, Kavos, Malia, Laganas, Agia Napa):- They go out and get utterly hammered

A picture of a raucous street in Manchester during New Year’s Eve celebrations has gone viral after social media users turned it into a series of hilarious memes. The original photograph – posted by Roland Hughes on Twitter – looks like a tableaux of drunkenness, with police grappling with a young man

I was not very much surprised when I read this: Favorite1

Good ale, the true and proper drink of Englishmen. He is not deserving of the name of Englishman who speaketh against ale, that is good ale. George Borrow, Lavengro, 1851 Favorite0

What two ideas are more inseparable than beer and Britannia? Sydney Smith (1771-1845), English clergyman, writer. Quoted in: Hesketh Pearson, The Smith of Smiths, ch. 1 1 (1934). Favorite0