| 
Anyone who knows me outside of these pages probably knows that I don’t mind a drink. I’ve had many a well-meaning teetotaller friend ask me if I might be an alcoholic. I can categorically say to them I’m not, because Alcoholics go to meetings and between work, cricket and my social life I just don’t have time for meetings.
I was also offended by the generally offensive Mufti who recently labelled everyone in this entire nation as drunken gambling whatevers, while ignoring the fact that a large amount of young Muslims in this nation are ignoring the religious prohibition on alcohol. I don’t gamble by the way, I’m no good at it, which means it cuts into my drinking money so I leave it alone.
As most of you know, dear readers, I am originally from regional Queensland where drinking is not a past-time, not even a sport, it’s a way of life, so I’ve grown up in the breeding ground of serious drinking. I’m also traversing a career change as I move back into tertiary study and am working again in the Hospitality industry. So I’ve got a triple whammy! Scottish heritage (big drinkers!), hospitality worker (big drinkers) and student (besides assignments, it’s very big drinking!). Not to mention the Queensland bit, or the Scotty bit.
I might try and now actually make some sense in this column......I’m practising what I preach and writing this while drinking so I seem to be taking some time to get to a point. On the whole it seems to me that while binge drinking is a reasonably wide spread culture in Australia, as a whole, it does vary from region to region. As I mentioned, its serious business in Queensland and it was that born and bred attitude I took with me when I left Queensland for the cold expanses of Europe.
Once I landed in The Netherlands, after a mammoth set of flights which took in the best part of 28 hours and a long session of that serious drinking (Economy ran out of two of the three brands of beer before I realised I couldn’t stand another Kirin and moved on to Bourbon) the first thing I wanted, and the last thing I needed, was more booze but as I was met at Schipol airport by an Aussie mate and his Dutch wife it was decided that we would grab some beer for the 90 minute drive across the country.
Unfortunately he bought Heineken, which is beer in name alone, but I’ll forgive him.
I found during my twelve months in Europe, that attitudes to drinking that were far ranging from my own and the general consensus of Australia as a whole. In the Netherlands they are very reserved unless the boss is paying the tab, at which point they go nuts. It was a completely different culture to what I was accustomed to when it came to the extra-curricular activity I enjoy so much. I’d go out drinking after work on a Friday with my Dutch friends and immediately be knocking back two to one, as the evening progressed it would turn into three to each of their one, slowly they’d leave, one or two at a time, and eventually I’d be the only one left in the pub.
The Netherlands is nestled snugly in between two countries where I found the drinking culture to be more consistent with our own. My experiences in both Germany and Belgium evidenced more of the drink-all-night-at-all-costs mentality I was accustomed to. The other pleasing aspect I found while visiting some of these places was, after a certain level of inhalation of boozy goodness, language is no longer a barrier. My English generally becomes just as broken as that of my newly befriended drinking partners.
Ireland was wonderful, but at the same time disturbing. Not only did they drink like me but they did it for longer and better. I’d finally met my match.
The less said about England and the fact I only got to drink with Aussies and Kiwis the better. It’s no fun trying to hunt out native drinkers and only find your Antipodean brothers and sisters! You already know how they go when confronted by a tasty beverage.
Returning to Australia and moving to Melbourne also presented an eye opener of sorts. Bars in Melbourne have COFFEE machines! What the fuck?! I’ve spent many hours behind bars (of the pub variety) while living and studying in Queensland and I swear if I’d ever had someone walk up to the bar and ask me to make them a coffee I’d have to politely ask them to quieten down and exit hastily before the bogans beat him up for being a poof who wanted a coffee in the pub. I can’t even recall working in a pub that had a proper coffee machine!
Of course all of this becomes irrelevant these days now that I’m back behind a bar full time and somebody comes up and orders a Corona, at which point I have to hit the mute button while my brain screams ‘If you want a beer order a fucking beer because the only good part about this bottle of watery, tasteless rubbish I’m about to hand you is the slice of fucking lime jammed in the neck!’ If you’re going to drink around me then at least be serious about it!
+ 1 + 1 | < Prev | Next > |
|---|