E-The Beer and Fags Diet:Chapter Four:Beer

CHAPTER FOUR

Beer

"Keep to the right-hand side until after Whirlpool Farm where you
should cross before going round the
right-hand bend. Walk over the first bridge, then turn left over the
stile (and a second shortly after)
and walk parallel to the River Thame up to the next fence."

I looked over the parapet of the first bridge into the so-called
"bottomless
whirlpool". There had been a sign on the bridge advertising a new
florist at
Waterperry Gardens, but somebody had chucked it in the water. As I
climbed over
the stile there was a sign saying "Bull in Field". I couldn't see a
bull so I carried on.
At the next stile I sat down for a few minutes rest and drank a can of
Tesco Strong
Bitter. Then I put a piece of nicotine chewing gum in my mouth and
started walking
again. Beer and fags, the curses of my life.

I've always had a drink problem, always been a pisshead. To paraphrase
Nick Hornby in
Fever Pitch - "I have measured out my life in drinking sessions, and
any event of any
significance has a drinking shadow." I've probably averaged one blind,
falling-down
drinking session a week for the past twenty-five years. That's thirteen
hundred blackouts.
I'm amazed I still have a liver, though it has begun to ache recently
after big binges. Even
as a child I was fascinated by booze. When I was ten years old and
alone in the house I
would raid the cocktail cabinet. First I'd check to see the bottles
weren't marked, then I'd
take swigs from whatever bottle I thought wouldn't be missed. The first
time I got
properly smashed was at my parent's New Year's Eve party in 1971. I was
fourteen at the
time and deemed just old enough to stay up late and man the temporary
bar in the living-
ago when I lived in
Saudi Arabia I made B promise that if anything happened to me she would
ship my body
home to be buried in England. I don't really know why I feel like this,
I suppose it's
purely down to one's own personal tastes. Or maybe it was the influence
of Rupert
Brooke's "The Soldier" which I learned by heart when I was fourteen.
When I discuss
this subject with friends they tell me they don't know how I could live
with the thought
of worms eating their way through my eyeballs. Well chums, personally
I'd prefer
maggots in my guts to the stench of burning flesh in the roasting-pits
of hell. Anyway, I
could always get a lead-lined coffin.

The funeral service itself might be a little more problematical. My
family are not
particularly religious, but neither are they particularly original
thinkers and I'm sure they
would wish and expect my funeral to take place in a church. Even I have
retained some
residual sentiment, nagging away at me inside, that I should
acknowledge this particular
rite of passage in the time honoured way. But I'm an atheist, I don't
believe in God and I
do believe in honesty. Wouldn't it be hypocritical to have a church
service when I've
spent my life blaming organized religion for all the sins of the world?
We've got a nice
little orchard at the back of our house. Couldn't we just hold a quiet
and dignified
humanist service in the village hall and then bury me under an
apple-tree? After all,
weddings can take place almost anywhere these days, why can't
funerals?

I'll probably chicken out and have it in a church. If so I'd like it to
be St Margaret's in
Oakley. That's if they'll have me after I've not set foot in there for
decades. I'd better
make sure I die at the right time as well. The congregations are so
small nowadays that
one vicar covers several parishes and each parish only hosts a service
every few weeks.
In the winter they close the churches down completely.

Either way, church or village hall, I would like two pieces of music at
the service. The
first will be "Days", written by Ray Davies but performed by Kirsty
McCall. This will
simply be a thank you to my wife and children. I'm presuming of course
that like most
men I will die before my wife. The other piece will be Jupiter from
Holst's Planets. I
would prefer this to "I Vow To Thee My Country", though I would hope
the words to the
hymn would still have a resonance with the congregation. This is not
because of the
patriotic first verse, though I am fiercely patriotic and this verse
would not be out of
place. Rather it would be for the words of the second verse. What
better reminder could
we want that there is something greater for mankind to aspire to? What
more beautiful
words are there than "and her ways are ways of gentleness, and all her
paths are peace."?

Then everybody could go down to the Chandos and get pissed. I want a
big party with all
the village invited. I want singing and dancing with loads of good
quality food and only
the finest real ale. I hope Pete is still serving Adnam's Broadside
when I go.

If I'm very rich when I die I'll leave a little money so my remaining
mates can have the
"Andy Pickering Memorial Curry and Piss-Up" every year. It would be
great if there was
after all an afterlife. I'd love to look down from on high each year
and see how the
number of attendees had diminished through death or apathy. Ah sod it.
I'm going to
outlive the lot of them. There ain't going to be no Memorial Curry and
Piss-Up.

There's nobody about at all. I haven't seen a living soul all morning.
It's Wednesday
so all the wheelie bins are outside the front gates, waiting for the
dustbinmen.

CHAPTER ENDS

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