Day 11: The first of many drunken oneadaysssss

I was planning on writing this later tonight, after I'd finished drinking. Actually, to be fair - I was planning on writing this while I was sober. But sadly, there are only so many hours in the day, and on days of the fri variety it's essential that some of these are spent drinking. As such, I'm blogging to you LIVE from the kitchen, whilst I drink into the night with some seriously classy bastards.

DRINKING. It's great. I mean, it's damaging as hell too - I've been following the wise words of Mr. Nutt for months now, and he's totally on the money; as Brits we drink too much, too often, too recklessly. Valid point, but I suspect his main beef is with the laughable outlook we have on drugs as a country - i.e. it's OK to use a drug as long as it's taxable. Oh, and as long as the NHS bill doesn't outweigh the chunk of cash we're getting from all you lovely filthy users.

Cigarettes were naturally the first to go - and why not? They're daft, and we're better off without them. Problem is, what's the next target on the health agenda? Oh yeah - it's booze. Seems that in the long term it's not profitable to the government anymore. Oh dear.

Of course, you cannee kill the juice - we'll just see the final nail hammered into struggling pubs. Nothing's changed with smoking, I'm currently surrounded by people puffing away. They're actually reading this now, and asking me what I'm writing. One of them is laughing. Christ. This is getting surreal - it's like on of those films where they're writing the script while they're doing what they're doing, just slightly behind. That's something a chap called Sam* just said. I WILL STOP THIS NOW.

Anyway - big issue at hand is this: Sure, the health benefits of alcohol are pretty poor. But what about the social benefits? Let's ignore the violent minority that's blown out of proportion for a second, and bypass the selection of rocket scientists who choose to make their mark on the world by blazing past the limit and wrapping themselves round trees. Alcohol does a lot of good - it brings people together. It sparks off the conversations we've wanted to breach for months, but haven't found the right time. Shy admirers unite as lovers. Men play air guitar. Strangers converse on public transport. I dance and sing along to ABBA songs until six in the morning.

It's not the ideal solution, but it's important. Love it or hate it, we've not got a great deal of religion in the UK which - locally speaking at least - tends to make big difference when it comes to keeping communities together; retaining that sense of being an accepted part of the big picture. It's far from the ideal replacement, but I genuinely feel like alcohol is a vital part of our social structure. Take it away, and we keep our physical health - but our identity would take a hit.

It's a fucking rubbish excuse for social webbing admittedly, but I really think we need it. Maybe not as individuals - the excellent @mrmelanin does perfectly well without it - but looking at the overall picture it's a substance that binds us together in a strange, shambling unity.

And on that note, I'm going to return to an evening of drinking to britpop with some lovely peeps, who have asked me to include a selection of quotes from them in return for letting me use the kitchen computer to blog AT A FUCKING PARTY.

"Don't touch the work experience girl - touch my dick instead. I did have intelligence quotes lined up, but I've forgotten what they are" - Laurie Innes

"Where's all the lighters gone? We had three." - THE Kat Street

*Samuel Morrison

So there you have it. If the above words of wisdom aren't enough to convince you of the overarching social importance of alcohol, then I am useless at writing rational sentences when drunk.

COKE OR PEPSI?