Like a Pounding Hammer to the skull

'Alcohol oh alcohol, I love you in my brain/Alcohol oh alcohol, I never want you again, YOU MAKE ME SICK.' So sang Charged GBH at the end of their seminal (in every sense of the word) first album 'City Baby attacked by Rats.' I have a similar opinion of the devil liquor, having smashed champagne, beer, red wine, white wine and gin into my face on Friday evening at Benjamo's Birthday soiree. The unassuming pub on the ground floor made the magic grotto at the top of the stairs all the more surprising. With crystal rocks imbedded in the walls and elaborate candelabras sweating wax by the bucketload, the restuarant area had an otherworldly quality which took on Middle Earth proportions after several bottles of champers. Into this cave of delights tripped the improbably gorgeous Eurocrew(TM) late as usual but golly who cares when this lot are about. We took to the vast table with hearty abandon and tasty morsels and fermented grapes poured into our mouths from...a...giant funnel in the sky (I may have hallucinated that last bit) Speeches were made, chairs were stood on and hands and heads were waved frantically about for no apparant reason other than perhaps to maintain balance, some of the party having had the odd tipple that afternoon, ahEM. I thank God I was not of their number as I truly cannot imagine what additional drinking would have done to my hangover which was anyway ENORMOUSLY HUGE AND BIG. I was partially mollified by the news that the b'boy also suffered in extremis, though as is tradition with this drug, after one day of abstinence I was soon chugging down the Riesling like a fule. Happy Birthday Ben, now please stop aging, it's killing the rest of us.

B