Bring me laughter...

I was trying to think of when I last experienced uncontrollable laughter. It was a long time ago. I think it was in Berlin, in a restaurant called Vau. I was there with my photographer, Rob, and a PR woman, whose name escapes me. It goes without saying that I had been drinking. Laughter always involved an artificial stimulant of some sort or other. And now I have no such thing. I don't drink, take drugs or smoke cigarettes. The nearest I get to anything like a stimulant is the occasional cappuccino, but I prefer a sparkling mineral water, a Pellegrino or Badoit. Perhaps I should get myself a tin of Andrews Liver Salts, they used to be fun: a teaspooon of the stuff 'for a refreshing drink' but there's also an element of excitement as once the teaspoon of powder hits the water, the whole thing fizzes up and you have to be quick to drink it before it loses its zing, I suppose similar to Berocca tablets. So I checked out Google and found that Andrews Liver Salts ceased production in 2023, not because they were discovered to be dangerous or anything like that, but just because they could no longer make them anymore. Alternatives exist, but the best bet is to stick with sparkling mineral water.

I used to like drinking alcohol. Or rather I kidded myself that I liked it. When I was a kid, let's say eight to 10 years old, alcohol never touched my lips. I drank lemonade and cream soda and I considered both to be delicacies. I remember going swimming on a Sunday morning with my dad and Christopher Hunt and his dad. Chris and I were school pals and he lived a couple of blocks from me in Ringstead Road. Number six or number eight, I can't recall. We went to Morden swimming pool in South London, the deep end was 15ft if I remember correctly and I found the pool to be an exciting place. I loved the blue water and the smell of chlorine (and still do). My dad taught me to swim at Highfield Swimming Baths in Carshalton. After a swim at Morden we would be treated to a chocolate eclair and a Pepsi and that was the height of soft beverage excellence.

Like everything that isn't good for you, the truth of the matter is that when first experienced, it's so horrible you would likely never go near it again. Smoking and drinking were both like that. I remember coughing and spluttering when I first tried a cigarette, but practice made perfect and it was the same with alcohol. In the early days, I remember my dad allowing me a shandy in the pub, one made with real beer from the pump. These were the days when dad had first passed his driving test and started taking us on family jaunts into the countryside where there were many 'country pubs' offering rounds of ham sandwiches to go with the beer. Later, on visits to Wandsworth Common to see 'big nan', my paternal grandmother, so-called because she was tall whereas my maternal grandmother, 'little nan', was short. Round at Big Nan's we were given a shot glass of Stones Ginger Wine (now that's a lovely drink). I remember my dad drinking Tolly Cobbold beer in the summer, sitting in the back garden with his Sunday Times reading about politicians now long dead, Reginald Maudling, Denis Healy, Ted Short, Jeremy Thorpe, there were loads of them, and I recall setting fire to the newspapers he discarded using my magnifying glass. Summers were all about burning newspaper and dried leaves with a magnifying glass. The papers and the leaves never caught fire, they just smouldered and blackened around the hole I created. I loved the smell of burning newspaper and even more so leaves and still do as it brings back memories of endless summers in the back garden in the days when the sun was always shining. 

It took a while to actually like drinking beer and smoking cigarettes, but we all kept at it just to be socially accepted. Today I simply wouldn't bother. But that peer pressure is strong and in many ways it still is; it's been eight years since I last had a drink but there are still people who want me to start again. While they think they might have some chance of success, they don't realise that I have made up my mind and I won't touch the stuff again. I'm called boring and such like, but it won't deter me from my already achieved goal of simply never touching booze again. I'd say to anybody who does drink: if you can go 12 months without it, you need never go near it again. I have lost every possible inclination to drink or smoke, I simply don't need it. I used to think I did need it and I probably did, but it was a false need. I'll admit there were many many times that I looked forward to reaching my hotel or a specific restaurant where the first thing I would order would be a large glass of Merlot and I really enjoyed it. A glass of red wine would relax me and help me unwind. I couldn't think of anything better and it was the same with smoking. There was nothing better, in fact, than a pint of bitter down the pub and a cigarette: Benson & Hedges Gold, Marlboro Red, Camel, Kent, cigarettes with a bite to them, none of that 'low tar' rubbish or, of course, a decent roll-up, preferably Old Holborn. I used to love the dampness of the tobacco in a fresh pouch of the stuff.

I never gave up drinking because I had to, I didn't have any issues. With smoking I stopped shortly after getting married. My wife has never smoked (she's the smart one of the family) and she didn't drink a great deal either. I didn't want to harm her with my smoking so I stopped and I found it very easy to give up, but not as easy as alcohol. I gave up smoking for 10 years but then started again before finally giving up for good. I went through a stage of smoking other people's cigarettes if they were offered to me and had an on/off relationship with tobacco into the mid-90s, but finally even the little bit of smoking stopped and now nobody could tempt me to start smoking again. Similarly drinking, which I only gave up after an inner ear infection back in October 2017. Arguably, giving up drinking was one of the best decisions I have made.

When I was drinking, I remember that there would always be a moment when, after hitting the sack around 2300hrs I would awake around 0300hrs with a thumping heart, an increased heart beat that I used to find very worrying. I was told by a doctor that it wasn't something to worry about but I still think it was of concern and after I stopped drinking, the rapid heart beat in the middle of the night ceased, not immediately but it stopped and hasn't come back. Surely a racing heart in the dead of night is not nothing, but whether it was or not, it's over now and I don't have to worry about it. 

I'm not one of those people who dislike others drinking when I'm not, but oddly those who do drink rarely do so in my presence even if I insist that they do; perhaps they're being polite, perhaps they think that by drinking they might 'set me off' and get me started again. They won't. I'm over it. 

Whether giving up drinking has made me a better person I don't know. Has it made me boring? Some people would say it has, they liked the crazy me. They enjoyed my fretting about what I might have said to X or Y at a party or a concert or round somebody's house as it would seriously bug me. That's what they really enjoyed, me on a back foot, making a fool of myself. They loved it because it wasn't them. Don't get me wrong, this wasn't always happening. Yes, I had my moments, but I wasn't a complete nutter, a lot depended on who I was drinking with and my state of mind. I've definitely lost friends too, but let's call them 'drinking buddies', not friends.

In truth, I'm probably not as much fun as I used to be, but only because I'm not as 'out of control' as I once was. 

As I said at the beginning of this post, I can't remember the last time I experienced uncontrollable laughter, which I believe is good for everybody. There was the time in Berlin and another occasion in Sutton Library with my old friend Andy Penfold. Both occasions involved artificial stimulants although I like to believe that had we not been under the influence the result would have been the same. Somehow I think not.