Booze

"If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered"

Stephen King

One of the reasons that Kairdiff has a problem with me, is that its drinking culture now rivals that of Newcastle in North East England. The Western Mail described it as the Hen Night and Stag night Capital of Europe. At no particular time of day you will see women dressed in skin tight black lycra, looking like condoms stuffed with walnuts,in pink cowboy hats corralled into a seating area with plastic chairs and ashtrays, more suitable for a nursery school than one of the less salubrious hostelries at the end of St Mary  Street. A street that has now been mostly pedestrianised to allow for more drinkers. The City Planners have made it a concrete paradise with a few uncomfortable benches for the confused and bewildered to rest while they contemplate their next move.

The reason that I drank was to alleviate symptoms of low self esteem and to anaesthetise my, as yet undiagnosed, mood disorder. I never drank to be sociable and to enjoy myself. I drank, because it lowered my inhibitions enough to slur at the opposite sex.  Now I need  to avoid preachiness here but I will rail against the City Fathers and the W.R.U who must make a pretty penny from the profits of 'Firewater' especially on matchdays. I would be interested to find out how much Brains and all the other Breweries fund alcohol rehabilitation programmes. I write from the complacency of my middle age with my alcoholic rights of passage behind me. It was a waste of time and it was a waste of money and Kairdiff like every other city and town in the UK and across the world allows this state sponsored lunacy because it brings in profits. Who knows if I will drink alcohol again? I hope I don't. but hope was always the last refuge of a scoundrel.

I drank in old Kairdiff, in the Cambrian, the Custom House, the Park Vaults and down in the Docks, the North Star and the Docks Non Pol! It was vibrant and alive and was full of characters, none least of all myself, either high on life and booze or down amongst the depths. Much of my mid to late twenties and early thirties were spent in the Welsh speaking, speakeasy known as Clwb Ifor Bach! It wasn't so much a speakeasy as a speak 'anodd iawn'/very difficult. Language in Wales brings its own complexities and I will cover this in another blog post. Sticky Floors and Plastic Glasses and the more you drink, the more you spend. It was in here, in 1997 that we celebrated like we had never celebrated before a 'Very Good Morning' in our newly bi-sexual nation! There were tears from an old Irish Socialist as we marched on to the Welsh College of Music and Drama where Wigley and Ron Davies 'came out' to thunderous applause and 'Hen Wlad fy nhadau'. I was a Nationalist in those days and probably am a closet one to this day. The drinking alleviated the feelings of confusion that I felt at having to feel like a second class citizen in a second class capital city. I had to go to a sleazy speakeasy  to speak my mother tongue and get pissed like all other indiginous peoples around the world. 'Firewater'. It's the old game of Bread and Circuses. Give them something to cheer and support, give them food and ale to divert their attention and then they won't question. Then they'll just believe its their fault!

Its that old Victim Mentality again.