I’m quite an old person now and so, as tediously mentioned a few times in the past month, can’t shake off a big night out as quickly as I could in more youthful times.
I think it depends a lot on how you’re woken up. Given your own time, some fruit, and some soothing music it’s not always such an ordeal, but this morning I was awoken by a fog horn. And then a second fog horn, booming over the first, which was then followed by a third, fourth and fifth until my room – through an open window – was full of the sounds of an entire Navy flotilla stuck in a New York traffic jam.
I live by the Mersey and the occasional sound of a ship’s horn is quite pleasant. The ferries that travel daily to and from Belfast, Douglas and Dublin can often announce their arrival or departure with a drawn out honk and no-body could possibly object; it’s the sound of the sea.
But this morning, the drone of dozens of mysterious horns had forced me and my headache to withdraw under the duvet in disbelief. The sound was then backed up by two (count ‘em!) helicopters that came and hovered outside my window. No nightmare this – it was definitely real and eventually, cursing the heavens, I got up and went to the window to see what the Hell was going on.
I wasn’t annoyed when I found out. It was an army of boats, from warships to tiny sailboats, celebrating the start of the around-the-world clipper race. I’d forgotten it was starting today, from the Albert Dock, and the clippers themselves were a handsome sight.
I did manage to but a bit of personal negative spin on the event, however. I was watching on the news about how each crew is made of up one professional skipper and a bunch of amateurs. Sailing around the world, in about a year I think, is obviously a life changing event and I found myself wondering if my next twelve months will be in any way as challenging as theirs. And then I thought; ‘No, it wont be, Stanley, because they’re sailing around the planet in a boat, and you’re writing a book about nonsense and hawking a film about being drunk in America.’ Sometimes it’s quite dangerous to think like that.
Struggled to get a pint down in the Head Of Steam pub at Lime Street Station where I’d taken A and Athena to catch their respective trains to London and Manchester.
With my two guests dispatched, and might I say what a pleasure it’s been, I took a stroll around town visited a couple of pubs.
K rung complaining of boredom because he’s had his house replastered and, by association, no TV or internet or anything because it has to dry for a few days. Got him and Seamus out for a drink and had my third evening in a row getting drunk. Will have a week of detoxing over the next 5 days. If nothing else, drinking’s quite an expensive thing to do. When did that happen? Wasn’t it the case you would go out for drinks to drown sorrows when you were down on your luck? Now you can only afford to go out drinking on consecutive days if you’d had considerable luck.
I wonder if the clipper crews were having a few drinks tonight? I think that’s highly unlikely, seeing as booze would be an impossible luxury in terms of weight, and also the professional skippers wouldn’t want a drunk crew risking their lives whilst bouncing across the high seas.
I however would encourage a drunken crew on such a voyage. There are two good reasons for this; First, there’s a tradition that needs to be upheld and that is that that sailors have always been drinkers. Pirates, of course, favoured rum. I believe rum was also the choice of the navy. Modern pleasure sailors probably prefer gin and tonics. Whatever the tipple, a drunken sailor is a true sailor. Second, it’s a well known fact that when you’re drunk you get places a lot quicker. When you’ve had a few and decide to walk home, a two mile journey home can be accomplished in, oh, half a minute? I believe the phenonomen is called the Beer Scooter. As in; ‘Had a few in The Red Lion and nipped home in no time on the Beer Scooter.’
Surely if adequately sauced, one crew could make it around the world and back to Liverpool in about an afternoon? That’s some good sailing.
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