Awake at 6am. A quiet day in the Trevor's kitchen in prospect, writing Metanoia. And then down to Holy Moly and the Crackers in Islington this evening, by bike or Oyster card, depending on the weather.
Drank 4 small bottles of Brewdog Nanny State last night. 0.5% alcohol. Very nice. The equivalent of 1/8 of a pint of the beer I used to drink. Not the end of the world, but it still had/has an effect. And Belle's point about thinking I'm drinking, even tho' I hardly am, deserves further pondering (as I promised her). Yes, in absolute terms, it doesn't matter. But it still associates in my not entirely sober mind, the jolly social occasion - dinner with the Trevor's - with what tastes like and feels like alcohol. Which only makes everything more difficult, and makes it easier to blur the boundary between not drinking and drinking. When do I get to the point when a pint of actual alcoholic beer seems like "not really drinking" and then how quickly does that pint become a half bottle of Scotch, "just occasionally". And we know where that leads . . . And since it really doesn't make me drunk, why do it at all? OK, it tastes nice, but really so does sparkling water with a slice of lemon. So, I think Belle is probably right. Keep it clear.
The deep flaw in the thinking is me feeling, I'm celebrating, or socialising, and, just as a treat, I'm going to have a beer (but it's OK because it's not really alcohol). But, to my drinking brain, this is a psychological drink - it looks, tastes, even feels, like a proper beer. So sooner or later, it will have to be an actual beer (it is only beer, after all). And so it goes . . .
Charles took me to Kenwood House to admire the house, the pictures, and the views of London. The house is lovely, as were the pictures and the view (apart from the Shard and Gherkin, pretty much as it was in the picture in the house made in the 18th C, including the much higher hills than I was expecting to the south of London). A Rembrandt self portrait, 2 Vermeers (Girl with a guitar, which is lovely) lots of Geo Romney, Gainsborough, Reynolds, several Van Dycks, a Singer Sargent) - the guides all desperate to tell us everything they knew (quite a lot, but too much information really, and no off switch that I could find). Home for smoked salmon sandwiches and Kerala chicken soup (not as disgusting as it might have been). And then a proper afternoon kip.
In the evening I went to see / hear Holy Moly and the Crackers at The Islington, Tolpuddle Street, The Angel N1 - a nice venue, and they could have filled it three times over.
An army of Birds (Stephen and Elaine, Conrad, Henry and Lucy) and niece Lily and a lot of people crammed into a very small venue with a brilliant but very loud band (in a good way). Stunning singing, brass (trumpet, sax and trombone) violin, accordion and drummer. They say they're folk rock. I do like London - it's full of young people. I am awash with Schweppes tonic water (much better than the CoOp's), soda water and limes. As Lily said, a very cheap date. No 43 bus took me all the way home to Muswell Broadway in less time than it took me to get in by tube. No-one upstairs on the bus speaking English. Great. Home just after 11pm.
A lovely sober day. And so to bed . . . to read a helpful booklet on how I can give my corpse to a London teaching hospital for the education of doctors in anatomy. Lovely. Another cheap date. But I have to deliver myself to the hospital. I wonder how much a man with a van would charge to deliver a corpse to London. Ring Nick Turner and ask for a quote.
Drank 4 small bottles of Brewdog Nanny State last night. 0.5% alcohol. Very nice. The equivalent of 1/8 of a pint of the beer I used to drink. Not the end of the world, but it still had/has an effect. And Belle's point about thinking I'm drinking, even tho' I hardly am, deserves further pondering (as I promised her). Yes, in absolute terms, it doesn't matter. But it still associates in my not entirely sober mind, the jolly social occasion - dinner with the Trevor's - with what tastes like and feels like alcohol. Which only makes everything more difficult, and makes it easier to blur the boundary between not drinking and drinking. When do I get to the point when a pint of actual alcoholic beer seems like "not really drinking" and then how quickly does that pint become a half bottle of Scotch, "just occasionally". And we know where that leads . . . And since it really doesn't make me drunk, why do it at all? OK, it tastes nice, but really so does sparkling water with a slice of lemon. So, I think Belle is probably right. Keep it clear.
The deep flaw in the thinking is me feeling, I'm celebrating, or socialising, and, just as a treat, I'm going to have a beer (but it's OK because it's not really alcohol). But, to my drinking brain, this is a psychological drink - it looks, tastes, even feels, like a proper beer. So sooner or later, it will have to be an actual beer (it is only beer, after all). And so it goes . . .
Charles took me to Kenwood House to admire the house, the pictures, and the views of London. The house is lovely, as were the pictures and the view (apart from the Shard and Gherkin, pretty much as it was in the picture in the house made in the 18th C, including the much higher hills than I was expecting to the south of London). A Rembrandt self portrait, 2 Vermeers (Girl with a guitar, which is lovely) lots of Geo Romney, Gainsborough, Reynolds, several Van Dycks, a Singer Sargent) - the guides all desperate to tell us everything they knew (quite a lot, but too much information really, and no off switch that I could find). Home for smoked salmon sandwiches and Kerala chicken soup (not as disgusting as it might have been). And then a proper afternoon kip.
In the evening I went to see / hear Holy Moly and the Crackers at The Islington, Tolpuddle Street, The Angel N1 - a nice venue, and they could have filled it three times over.
An army of Birds (Stephen and Elaine, Conrad, Henry and Lucy) and niece Lily and a lot of people crammed into a very small venue with a brilliant but very loud band (in a good way). Stunning singing, brass (trumpet, sax and trombone) violin, accordion and drummer. They say they're folk rock. I do like London - it's full of young people. I am awash with Schweppes tonic water (much better than the CoOp's), soda water and limes. As Lily said, a very cheap date. No 43 bus took me all the way home to Muswell Broadway in less time than it took me to get in by tube. No-one upstairs on the bus speaking English. Great. Home just after 11pm.
A lovely sober day. And so to bed . . . to read a helpful booklet on how I can give my corpse to a London teaching hospital for the education of doctors in anatomy. Lovely. Another cheap date. But I have to deliver myself to the hospital. I wonder how much a man with a van would charge to deliver a corpse to London. Ring Nick Turner and ask for a quote.
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ReplyDeleteI read today’s blog and personally feel - at only day 4 - that I am too fearful of having any alcohol at all. So I understand about the blurring of boundaries you risked last night. Yet I have ordered some nonalcoholic gin from Amazon so maybe I too , as Jason Vale would say , am playing the ‘normies game’ Thanks for good for thought. Hat Trick
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