Down the hatch

Attitudes to alcohol have certainly changed over the years. Stricter in some ways, more relaxed in others. Alcohol consump-tion in Britain is actually falling steadily, especially among the young, though you wouldn't think it from the way some people casually pour it down their throats.

When I was on my first ever job as a local newspaper journalist, the rest of the staff would routinely go off for extremely boozy lunches and return so pissed they could barely string a few words together, let alone turn in a serious article.

This behaviour didn't last long though, and in my second job, also on a local paper, we would all go for massive lunches (usually heart-rotting fry ups) rather than massive drinking sprees.

Nowadays in many workplaces it's strictly taboo to drink any alcohol at all at lunchtime, to ensure people can do their job and not doze off in a state of happy inebriation. This was definitely the unwritten rule at most of my workplaces and I abided by it, which was easy enough as I've never been a heavy drinker.

As a twenty something I got absurdly drunk a few times with my fellow students on a sociology course, but the hangovers were so dreadful I vowed never to get that drunk again.

But I'm still surprised when I go to other people's homes and they're obviously expecting me to drink copious amounts of alcohol. Bottles of wine are in plentiful supply and my glass is topped up the moment it looks less than full.

Neither of my parents were more than occasional drinkers, so that's probably where my own restraint comes from. They might sheepishly dust off a bottle of sherry for the Christmas dinner but that was about it.

Go on, have another. Cheers!

Brain drain

Oh dear. Some new research suggests that any amount of alcohol can damage the brain, even so-called moderate drinking. In which case teetotallers have had the right idea all along, and should be much brainier than us boozers.

Of course it's only one bit of research and has yet to be confirmed. So I'm not giving up alcohol any time soon. Jenny and I have roughly a glass of wine a day, which doesn't seem excessive. It's a pleasure we wouldn't want to lose.

But does this research ring true? Well, I've been drinking small amounts of alcohol for most of my life and I haven't noticed any drastic changes in my brain, except the slight forgetfulness that comes with advancing age anyway. 

If alcohol was damaging my brain, surely I'd be pretty gaga by now and having to be reminded who I am and what I'm doing.

And life-long teetotallers should be much smarter than I am and running rings round me. There are plenty of teetotallers in Northern Ireland (or so they say!) but some of them are quite visible dimwits, which sheds some doubt on the research.

Then again, I don't know what my brain would be like if I'd been a life-long teetotaller. Would I be so clever I'd be running rings round everyone else? Would I have polished off a cryptic crossword in ten minutes? Who knows?

And although we all lose millions of brain cells as we get older anyhow, apparently that still leaves us with more than enough brain cells to keep us functioning efficiently. So if alcohol kills a few more, does it really matter?

I await further research with interest. Cheers!

Bad habits

The journalist Virginia Ironside doesn't see why old age should mean kicking bad habits and taking up healthier ones. If you're going to die soon anyway, what does it matter if a bad habit might take a year or two off your life?

At the age of 75, she still smokes and drinks, she loves butter and cream, she takes strong painkillers against the doctor's advice, and in general she scoffs at health warnings.

I both agree and disagree. I agree that slavishly adopting healthier habits in order to live slightly longer is a bit pointless. Especially if the habits in question really go against the grain. But I also disagree because if your bad habits make you ill, then someone else has to step in and make you healthy again - if they can. Why should other people be burdened with that?

Not that it's a big issue in my case, because I've never had any bad habits to speak of. Perhaps I should be adopting a few rather than avoiding them. Would life be more fun, I wonder?

The fact is I've never smoked, I seldom drink more than one glass of wine, I've only taken "fun drugs" like marijuana and LSD on four occasions, I don't eat anything with too much salt, sugar or fat, I eat very little chocolate, and I don't spend all day on the sofa. I don't find any of this abstinence tiresome or alien, it all comes quite naturally and has done for decades.

But as Kingsley Amis once said "No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home." So if you're prone to dangerous habits, why not carry on with them and to hell with the consequences?

Well, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. So I'm unlikely to be stuffing myself with booze, drugs or double cream any time soon.

Count me out

When it comes to wild partying, I was always old before my time. I never quite saw the attraction, even as a rebellious teenager who was pretty wild in other ways.

I had a friend who would drag me along to these all-night parties in trendy Notting Hill. We would be there till the small hours, he enjoying himself immensely, me getting more and more bored and longing for my warm, cosy bed.

Everyone else would be getting sky-high on drugs or booze and raving about the latest fashionable gurus (R D Laing, Tim Leary, Abbie Hoffman, Huey Newton, Germaine Greer, Valerie Solanas). I wasn't keen on either mind-bending substances or personality cults so I felt a bit out of the loop. I would have preferred a searching one-to-one conversation to a roomful of lazy name-droppers so I was forever frustrated. I felt like a 70-year-old grandad who'd somehow stumbled into a kids' party.

Funny, because the rest of the time I was an instinctive rebel, disputing anything and everything from news values and dress codes at the local newspaper I worked for, to prejudice about gays, women, socialists and modern art, to parking restrictions and speed limits. There was virtually nothing I would happily accept, nothing I wouldn't promptly question and challenge and argue with. I drove my parents crazy with my endless scepticism and disagreement.

So you'd think wild parties would be right up my alley. But I suppose the truth is I found them distinctly unrebellious and predictable. Getting stoned? Getting drunk? Idolising a few alternative celebs? It was pretty tame stuff as far as boundary-breaking and tradition-smashing went. Hangovers never changed the world. Drugged stupors never put an end to poverty. Celebs get attention but seldom change the world either.

So if you fondly imagined I spent my teenage years in an addled stupor of non-stop partying - then think again.

R D Laing: radical psychiatrist who questioned definitions of madness
Tim Leary: psychologist and advocate of psychedelic drugs
Abbie Hoffman: one of the founders of the libertarian Yippies movement
Huey Newton: one of the founders of the Black Panthers
Germaine Greer: author of The Female Eunuch
Valerie Solanas: author of the SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) Manifesto

When the cat's away

Well, now that Jenny's away in Canada for a few days, it's all systems go Chez Nick. The wild parties are in full swing, my red-hot mistress is installed in the spare bedroom and the drugs are in plentiful supply.

I'm already exhausted from the non-stop hedonism and self-indulgence. I just haven't done enough of this to build up the necessary stamina and uninhibited abandon. I haven't hung around with enough tearaway celebs lately (of course I'm invited to all their parties but I'm a bit shy so I've missed a few).

The neighbours are already complaining about the noise and disturbance, what with the stretch limos parked all the way up the road, all the glass from the broken windows and the lakes of vomit everywhere. But what the hell, it's only once every six months, why can't the tight-arsed little curtain-twitchers loosen up a little? Jesus, get a life.

The quality of the gossip is first-rate. You wouldn't believe how many secret babies, lovers, drug overdoses, tax dodges and shady business deals I've been privy to. If I got on to the papers, I'd be a rich man. But of course my lips are sealed or my name will be mud and I'll never get invited to Madonna's fiftieth.

If only the paparazzi would restrain themselves a bit, we could really let our hair down. It's a real drag having to rein ourselves in because some cash-hungry snapper is pointing his greasy lens through the front windows. I have to keep the bondage gear and torture equipment well out of sight.

I'm getting through quite a lot of money what with all the booze, the recreational substances and Mick Jagger's private gig. Have you any idea what these people charge? It's a f**king liberty. Isn't his state pension enough?

And the sheer quantity of sexy smalls Ms Bit-On-The-Side goes through is unbelievable. She demands at least half a dozen camisoles a DAY, and even had the cheek to bill me for the new implants. Does she think I'm made of money? I'm not sure how I'm going to explain the eye-popping credit card bill to my dear lady wife.

Still, it'll all have to stop in a few days, and not before time. By then I'll be in a state of total exhaustion, out cold on the shag pile. It's all too much for a sexagenarian, I tell you.

(Some people are spreading vicious rumours that all I'm really doing is cooking chili risottos, reading pretentious books and playing Annie Lennox non-stop. This couldn't be further from the truth. My lawyers have been consulted)