One in the eye for drunkards

NOW call me unimaginative if you like, but though in my time I have done many things with vodka – mainly drink quite a lot of it – I have never felt the need to pour it into my eyeball.

I know, I know. How boring am I?

The trick featured in a daft film years ago, but apparently it is now a craze among university students.

(Pause while you insert your own thoughts here on (a) the general stupidity of many students, falling standards, what is the world coming to?

etc, etc and (b) wondering where on earth they get the money from.) They do it because they think it gets them drunker quicker, though as they presumably must be pretty ratted even to attempt it in the first place, one can only wonder how they can tell.

The bad news is that it can cause damage to the eyeball. You’d think they’d be bright enough to work that out. There must be a module on that somewhere.

But what really struck me about the story was the different way that today’s generation approaches drink.

Recently I was at a reunion of the radio station where I’d started my career.

I didn’t think I’d ever been to the reunion’s venue. “It’s a pub in Oxford,”

said a former colleague briskly. “Of course we’ve been there.”

Certainly the subsequent occasion included an awful lot of boozy reminiscences.

And that was from the days when we were all supposedly grown-ups.

But even if we drank too much, too often, too late, we did it differently.

The drunkenness was a by-product of a good evening – not the sole intention.

The bliss of the first drink of the evening was a pleasure to be savoured slowly, whether it was the sharp hit of the spirits or the mellow deliciousness of the wine. Wonderful.

Then the almost equal bliss of the second. Then the company relaxed, everything was more companionable, the conversation flowed. Then there was always the tipping point when you thought about leaving, going home and being sensible. Or not. Sometimes you just knew the night was too good to give up on. And the hangover was going to be worth it.

The difference now is that often people have got to that critical point even before they go out. They knock back the lager or the cheap vodka before they even leave the house – sometimes even alone – so that they’re well away by the time they get to the bar.

How sad is that? It’s a bit like stuffing yourself with bread and cheese before going out for a good meal.

My sons, of course, think I’m the one who’s sad for thinking it odd. But I maintain that my aim in going out was always to have a good evening and while getting drunk was pretty inevitable, it was also incidental. For their generation, it seems that getting drunk is the prime purpose.

Surely alcohol and good company are pleasures to be shared and savoured, not attacked with manic desperation. Unless you really really like lighter fluid.

Anyway, I’m not rushing to pour vodka into my eyes. The best place for vodka is an ice cold glass with dash of tonic and a twist of lime.

Then you can actually taste it and enjoy it. Which strikes me as much more fun.

SCIENTISTS in Munich have proved what I’ve always thought – if you eat a decent breakfast, you just want to carry on eating all day... Just give your insides a yoghurt and they’re too unimpressed to demand more.

The exception was exam time.

Somewhere I once read a bit of probably quite dubious research which said that a decent breakfast can make half a grade’s difference.

On exam mornings the boys were force-fed bacon sandwiches and orange juice. Every little helps. It was probably more constructive than nagging them about revision.

DESPITE all the fine words from politicians of all colours, bankers’ bonuses are as big as ever, some of them running into tens of millions of pounds.

For many years now we’ve had a minimum wage. Isn’t it time we introduced a maximum wage? That would sort them out.

SO 50 is the happiest time of your life. Whose life? According to research by an insurance company, fifty-somethings are having a whale of a time. They’re fitter than previous generations, their mortgages are paid off, their children are off their hands, they’re taking early retirement and life is one long round of holidays and not caring what anybody thinks.

Sounds brilliant, doesn’t it? If only.

Most fifty-somethings I know, still have massive mortgages and children at school. Then there’s university to pay for... students to support...

And by the time they’ve cleared their own mortgage, it’s time to help the children out with theirs.

And as interest rates are low and pensions are rubbish, all that most fifty-somethings have to look forward to is another 20 years of work.

If they’re lucky.

Meanwhile, the biggest increase in divorces is among the over-55s.

Never mind. If you’re 50 today – happy birthday!

A week will do nicely, thank you very much

SO fathers could soon be entitled to ten months paternity leave. I can already hear employers groaning in disbelief and horror.

A lot of the dads won’t be too pleased either. There are men who want to spend ten months at home with their new babies. But not, I think, very many of them.

A week does most of them nicely enough, thank you.

But if they could save up that paternity leave for 12 years or more until the baby is hitting its teens, then that’s a different kettle of hormones altogether.

New babies need their mums. Teenagers – especially stroppy, bolshie teenagers with an attitude problem – need their dads.

MODEL Miranda Kerr, pictured, wife of Orlando Bloom, has been pictured relaxed, happy and stunning, breast-feeding their new baby Flynn.

It’s a lovely picture and will do an awful lot more to encourage new mums than a thousand NHS posters.

What was really impressive though, was that she had managed to find a lippy to match her dressing gown. Now that’s style.

Backchat

Dear Sharon,

YOU don’t have to be a “Tiger Mother” to help your children succeed. Right from junior school we just had a rule that there was no TV or computer games for our three (two boys and a girl) until they had done their homework/recorder/violin /whatever. Once they’d done that, they could do what they liked for the rest of the evening so they had a real incentive to get on with it straight away and get it over with and it meant I didn’t have to spend all evening nagging.

But we thought half an hour’s music practice was doing well. None of us could have stood three hours!

Kathy Rigby (by email)

Dear Sharon,

“COME to that, I expect quite a lot of men would be happy to marry a woman with plenty of cash too. Makes life easier, doesn’t it?”

Too true. I won’t bore you with the old joke about a nymphomaniac who owns her own brewery, but as someone who went through an expensive divorce I’d like to say that I am very liberated and I would have no problem at all with a wife who earned twice as much as I do. Ten times as much would be even better. Or if you know of any available heiresses, please send them my way.

David Mills (by email).