Given that the Tribune was born in a bar, you’d think we would’ve dedicated an issue to drinking before now. Ah well, it only took us a year. Yep, that’s right, a whole year we’ve been entertaining and informing the bayside burbs now.

A great big boozy Thank You to our contributors, as usual, and it was great to have so many turn up for the Tribune’s birthday drinks the other night. Lots of fun meeting those with whom we only communicate over the ether, and one of the highlights for us was Brad bringing along his collection of the earliest issues of the Tribune, when it was only distributed out of the King of Tonga. If anyone out there has a copy of our first ever effort, the one-page King’s Decree that we produced sometime back in 2007, please let us know. We may autograph it for you!

In the short year that the Tribune has been in publication it has, as is well known, risen to become a beacon of informed debate and social comment. In this vein our beloved editors have thrown down the gauntlet to write on the subject of drinking. How does one respond? As a budding writer who has only really recently discovered the joy of the craft through this publication, I feel the weight of expectation to analyse such a multi-faceted issue in a way that both captivates and challenges the reader. In doing so, I hope to catalyse a higher level of thinking on such an important issue within the community.

Now, I have a well stocked chest of experience and observation from which to draw, and many an important point to make. Huge problems confront us today surrounding drinking; health issues, violence and noise abatement in the Tennyson Street area, just to name a few. With my responsibility to inform and challenge you, the reader, I feel it my duty therefore to write about…….getting pissed and pooing your pants.

I’m sick of this outpouring of support for poor little Matthew Johns.

The proliferation of groups and pages on Facebook and Yahoo and other various forums, bleating about how hard done by this lowlife is, has utterly astounded me.

I’m also disappointed in the fact that he is the only one that has been outed publicly for the group sex controversy and there are at least eleven other participants who have not had the spotlight pointed at them as well.

 

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What better combination is there than young love and booze?

It is all too often that a big night on the turps leads to the first sparks of a relationship.

Sadly, dear readers, the Tribune is not yet making the kind of profit that will pay the rent, the school fees and the upkeep on Justin’s Star Trek memorabilia collection. So I have a job out there in the real world where I have to be nice to paying clients.

One of those clients is an aged care facility, I deal with the business end, where they manage the supply contracts and the property maintenance. They’re professional people; they do their jobs so that they too can pay the rent and the school fees. But I’ve done jobs like that before and there is something that feels a little bit good about earning your living and helping the helpless at the same time. So I like them, and in amongst our contract negotiations and costing calculations we chat a bit about the service they provide.

‘Give me Rum, Give me Vodka, Give me Brandy, Give me Beer, Give me the chance of some amusement, Give me the chance of some good cheer, Newcastle Brown I’ll drink down, To the dregs I’m hell on legs, I’m drinkin’ again!’ – Jake Burns (Stiff Little Fingers)

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.

“... alcohol has existed longer than all human memory. It has outlived generations, nations, epochs and ages. It is a part of us, and that is fortunate indeed. For although alcohol will always be the master of some, for most of us it will continue to be the servant of man" The founding Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

The word alcohol comes from the Arabic ‘al Kuhul’, but no one knows when it was first used or by whom.

The discovery of late Stone Age beer jugs has established the fact that intentionally fermented beverages existed at least as early as the Neolithic period (cir. 10,000 B.C.)

I’m writing here to prove to you just how much fun you can have without alcohol.

First up: Coke

It was a sunny Friday lunch-time, I’m all the way in Torquay without my parents, at my last day of my school camp, “borrowing” Coke cans for the 2-hour trip back home. So far, my mates and I have filled up our bags with 6 Coke cans for social enjoyment. I’m pretty much addicted to coke so I can’t help myself. I sneak over to the eski for 1 more, or 2, or maybe 3. I grab a handful of Coke cans and run around the back of our giant 27 seater dining table, I open my bag; I put it on the table, and just start tiptoeing back when “MR LEETHAM, LUKE BDB HAS LOTS OF COKE CANS IN HIS HAND, EVEN CHECK HIS PACK HE PROBABLY HAS MORE!!!! AND LOOK, ZEN AND MARCUS HAVE SOME TOO!!!!!!!!!!” Aw crud. Class Dobber just ratted me out. 21 solid profits (Coke cans) have just been lost.

I have a confession to make. I have never been dead drunk. I have been quite definitely happy and expansive on a number of occasions, but I have never really been plastered in a "who-gives-a-fuck what I say or do"; "sing Khe-San at the top of my lungs and vomit all over the counter at McDonalds" kind of way.

Anyone now in their late thirties remembers what drinking in the eighties was like. Pub rock was more than just alive and well, it was screaming from the rooftops. You could walk into just about any venue and see live music, of one variety or another. It was the era of pub bands like the Hunters and Collectors and the Black Sorrows, but if you couldn’t get into one of those gigs, there was the Rock Follies, Captain Spalding, The Melody Lords and a hundred other cover bands playing every night of the week. You could pile out of a taxi just about anywhere, walk into the first pub you came across, and see a band. If they were any good, you’d follow them across town for a few weeks, or months, and discover new pubs, new people, other bands, and often be happily reunited with old drinking buddies from six months ago, who had followed the same meandering path to the new stomping ground. There was some vague feeling of community and a shared journey in it.

Does this mean that public servants validate my very existence? God. Time for another drink.

Several years ago, when lovelyhusband and I leapt gaily into cohabitation we managed to kick it off, very cleverly, on the last day of the financial year. So I rang Centrelink to say I was finally off their books (15 minutes on hold, then “Ok, that’s grand but could you please fill in the 300 page form that says you don’t want us to give you money anymore and get it in to us before yesterday or we will continue to give you money no matter how often you tell us not to and then, after six months, we will be horrified to learn that you were extorting money out of us when you deserve NOTHING and promptly fine you a squillion and 3 dollars at 15% interest and report you to Today Tonight. OkThanksBye”).

 

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Recently, I read a lovely book about the pleasures of alcohol: Everyday Drinking by Kingsley Amis. It is a distillation (gettit!) of articles originally written for a monthly publication. It’s a beautifully written book, silky and deceptively simple.

Kingers covers the history of alcohol, recipes, the boozing man’s diet, tips for the stingy and a highly recommended guide to The Hangover. He is definitely your man for the cocktail.

Almost 90% of wine made in New Zealand is sealed with a screwcap, which is the fastest uptake and most extensive use of screwcaps of any winemaking region in the world. But is that a good thing?

Inspired by Marcella Hazen’s Ossobuco in Bianco

Osso bucco is such a delicious thing to eat, such an impressive and relatively simple dish to serve for a luncheon or dinner party, that everyone should become confident in adding this meal to their repertoire of ridiculously simple and uncomplicated dishes. A slow braise of veal shanks in butter and white wine, served with a gremolata of parsley, lemon zest and garlic, it is one of the few Italian dishes not eaten on its own but traditionally accompanied by a Risotto Milanese, a delicate, plain risotto, colored and flavored with saffron.

Well, the match review committee and I are feeling more than a little bit dusty after the Tribune’s first birthday party last night. Yep, that’s right, you’ve all been laughing yourselves silly in a learning and constructive fashion for ONE WHOLE YEAR!!!! What have we learnt over the past twelve months of my sports rants, folks?