Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim, p.54

Open any English newspaper and you will find complains about pubs: of poor service, weak beer, horrifying snacks and total boredom. One wonders why people use such places at all. Perhaps because they have been told that suffering is good for the soul.

Idries Shah, Darkest England, p.294

To finer nostrils, this English taint of spleen and alcoholic excess, for which, owing to good reasons, it is used as an antidote - the finer poison to neutralize the coarser: a finer form of poisoning is in fact a step towards spiritualization. The English coarseness and rustic demureness is still most satisfactorily disguised by Christian pantomime, and by praying and psalm-singing (or, more correctly, it is thereby explained and differently expressed); and for the herd of drunkards and rakes who formerly learned moral grunting under the influence of Methodism...

They are not a philosophical race - the English.... Schelling rightly said, ‘Je meprise Locke’; in the struggle against the English mechanical stultification of the world... It is characteristic of such an unphilosophical race to hold on firmly to Christianity - they need its discipline for ‘moralising’ and humanising. The Englishman, more gloomy, sensual, headstrong, and brutal than the German - is for that very reason, as the baser of the two, also the most pious: he has all the more need of Christianity.

Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, p. 252

What a pity it is that we have no amusements in England but vice and religion!

Sydney Smith (1771–1845), English clergyman, writer. Quoted in: Hesketh Pearson, The Smith of Smiths, ch. 10 (1934).

Sir William Harcourt argued that ‘as much of the history of England had been brought about in public houses as in the House of Commons’.

Brian Harrison, Drink and the Victorians, p. 45

If there was a God in Brutland which abode would He or She favour? I swear that He or She was bound to be the sovereign ruler of a Yeast Extract Consumption Unit - what the natives call publican. Or, alternatively, He or She would merely inhabit it and demand from His or Her congregation to perform their rites of worship (including the Holy Communion) only within the premises of that hallowed edifice:

Why can't we drink when we like?

IT IS a great British failing that we invariably make mockeries of our national institutions.

Even before the Church of England considered it a fit topic for debate whether or not priests should believe in God, a latter-day idol Eric Idle to be precise had already laid into the one place most of us genuinely feel at home on Sundays: the pub.

The Times, 2 August 1994, No bar to pub opening, Peter Millar (all following references from the same article)

Something that leads me to the conclusion that Beer, Religion, Pub, National Pride, Alcoholics Anonymous and joie de vivre are concepts synonymous:

British beer is today widely acknowledged to be a subject for pride, as subtle, varied and demanding on the educated palate as the products of Burgundy micro-climates. But one crucial difference is that our ales are at their best only when pulled by handpump from a barrel properly racked in a well-run cellar. In short, good beer and good pubs are synonymous.

ibid

And to recapitulate I should like to emphasise that God can only be properly worshipped within the sacrified space of Brutland’s state-of-the-fart Yeast Extract Consumption Unit.

Indeed, a recent decrease of these venues can only lead in degeneration and possession of the people’s angelic spirit by the servants of diabolus demonicus. These venues that prop up the religious institution and strengthen the nation’s moral fabric should by all conceivable means be further sustained and empowered. It is absurd and blasphemous to house the soi-disant homeless in the holy niches of God:

Trade figures estimate there are about 65,000 left, but it would take a blind, and insensitive, optimist not to realize that we are in danger of being cavalier about the erosion of an essential part of the English way of life. Look at the fate of any village where the public house has been bought up, closed down and converted into accommodation: strand of community life dies with it.
[My italics]

ibid

                                                  *

The bonds between drink and every aspect of life in a predominantly agricultural society had hitherto made teetotalers as rare as atheists. Indeed, in the early Victorian period, religion and drink were often abandoned together by the same individuals...

Brian Harrison, Drink and the Victorians, p. 44

By drinking deeply one asserted one’s virility; working men marked their sons’ maturity by making them publicly drink at a ‘rearing’.
Ibid. p. 39

It is one of the most adhered to unwritten laws of Brutland that whoever doth enter the temple of God is under the severe moral obligation of consuming at least a whole pint of yeast extract. Individuals that do otherwise, either by means of consuming in half-a-pint units or by means of consuming uncustomary types of yeast extract are frequently frowned upon and secretly excommunicated. For example, snakebite [1] drinkers are brimming with the right hormones, whereas, shandy drinkers are bound to be rather deficient in the virility department.

It is due to native ingenuity that a method has been devised by which one may distinguish between the former and the latter (the so-called poofs). It is a matter of great importance being able to further differentiate between the aforementioned species as it may prove tricky when one is found in the fuzzy condition of rapture that religious ecstasy often leads to.

To clear things up a little: religious ecstasy is bound to lead to empathogenesis; a condition according to which there follows an increase in spontaneity and communicative ability and one should be very cautious lest he or she empathised with an individual that had the inappropriate twenty-fourth chromosome. Therefore, a male would not be able to discern between a female and a poof on the sole basis of the consumption of yeast extract in half-a-pint units (as they are both likely to perform) and a further clue becomes urgently needed.

However, those with increased serotonin levels, induced by the intervention of the Holy Dove, wouldn’t really give a toss.

                                                  *

In settling an island, the first building erected by a Spaniard will be a church; by a Frenchman a fort; by a Dutchman, a warehouse; and by a Englishman, an alehouse.

G.L Aperson, English Proverbs and proverbial phrases

There were a few empty rooms in the house I was living. So, the landlord wanted to fill them up. But it was me who was going to do all the showing around. So, a couple of first year English males came round, and after having a thorough look around the house whilst I was describing it to them, and as we went to the kitchen for a cup of tea, the burning question, the all-important piece of factual knowledge that would make the real difference, the existential ansgst finally found its expression in the form of the interrogatory: ‘how far is the nearest pub?’.

                                                 *

Why do some Brits go abroad to drink like fish and fight for fun? ‘I think that's just a nasty hangover from the jingoism and imperial chauvinism of our past,’ says Dr Helen Haste, head of psychology at the University of Bath.

Cosmo Landesman, May we have the pleasure?, Guardian, Saturday October 17, 1998

It was late May and I had gone to see my GP. Whilst I was waiting I couldn’t help but notice a very interesting poster. It was the photograph of a table covered with various empty glasses of all shapes and colours which had apparently contained alcohol. In the background there was a Malaga-type resort and a beach. The poster was done by Health Care North West and it read:

IS THIS ALL YOU’RE GOING TO SEE ON HOLIDAYS?

DRINK WISELY AND HAVE A BETTER TIME.

I believe that the word ‘holiday’ is not appropriate in conveying the full significance of the term. It should be re-baptized as ‘alcoholiday’ - hence the question ‘is this all you’re going to see on your alcoholidays’ would become absurd is it appears to challenge a self-evident notion.

                                                  *

What can save people from suicide, the drug par excellence, has always been some sort of cultural security. People who take drugs are culturally insecure.

Pier Paolo Pasolini, Droga e Cultura, Il Caos

You’ll never hope to stay within the ‘safe’ number of units, and even the most conscientious of doctor would be surprised if you did - they were students once, and medics have the worst reputation of all.

Sub Student Handbook, p. 30

I was lucky enough to become friendly with a group of medical students. And they’ve told me various stories. Like how doctors put themselves on the drip for ten minutes before they start work in order to sober up after a night of debauchery. A trainee doctor once recounted how he delivered a baby drunk. One of the most interesting incidents though I witnessed in person.

The hero was an aspirant medic in possession of a quantity of adulterated amphetamine. It seems that somebody had told him that amphetamines dissolve in vinegar and he was determined to purify it. So he got a wine glass and filled it up to the middle with vinegar. He added the powder, stirred and then drunk it whilst holding his nose closed with his fingers!

                                                  *

A country rector is the toast of his parishes after turning to drink to keep three churches alive.

A modern saint. No doubt.

Mr Broster cited historical precedence for his venture (...) : ‘there has been a long association of churches brewing beer. St Andrew’s in Lewes brewed beer to mark the accession of Mary’.

The Manchester Metro News, Rector turns to drink to save churches, 9 August 1996

I was wrong after all. You see I thought that the correlation between divine worship and yeast extract was a relatively new phenomenon. This in fact, goaded me into conducing further research where I discovered even stronger links between religion and alcohol. Indeed, I am informed that many aspects of religious life are closely linked with alcohol, holy communion being one of them: ‘Termly communion at Oxford in the regency period was a drunken occasion’ (Brian Harrison, Drink and the Victorians, p.43). Then we move to marriage: ‘Festive and economic arrangements at weddings reveal how -in remoter areas- religion, drink and the agricultural interest were closely integrated’ (ibid, p.43). And of course we shouldn’t miss the most important event in one’s life - death:

Fatalistic escapism helps to explain the lavish drinking at funerals... Drab lives acquired dignity in death. Again relatives showed respect to the dead, as to the living, by ceremonially drinking.

Brian Harrison, Drink and the Victorians, p. 44

                                                  *

David Pitman, landlord of the Watermill public house in Burgess Hill, said: ‘It sells well and it is popular. It is a traditional ale and a damn good product. It is the nearest thing to God.’

The Manchester Metro News, 9 August 1996

Wow, sheer spirit-uality! Write for me not a chapter, but a whole book on the metaphysics of real ale consumption!

Or, perhaps, compose an advertisement on the metaphysics of real ale consumption. Well, somebody has already spared us the trouble. It depicts two monks praying towards a delta-shaped stained-glass window in the center of which there was the image of a pint with a hallo around it. The caption goes:

THERE WERE
TWO REASONS FOR BEING A MONK
IN YHE TWENTIETH CENTURY.
RELIGION WAS THE OTHER ONE.

And the rest of the one-page ad read:

THE MONKS OF BURY Sr EDMUNDS
ABBEY WERE COMMITTED MEN.
COMMITTED TO BEER THAT IS. INDEED,
IF A MONK STRAYED FROM THE PATH
OF RIGHTEOUSNESS HE WOULD HAVE TO
FORSAKE HIS DAILY ALLOWANCE OF
EIGHT PINTS OF THE ABBOT’S ALE AS
PUNISHMENT. BUT THEY DIDN’T JUST
DRINK FOR THE SAKE OF IT. WITH NO
BEER NUTS OR CRISPS TO SUSTAIN
THEM, ALE WAS A VITAL PART OF THEIR
DIET. TODAY’S ABBOT CONVERTS DRINK
IT FOR OTHER REASONS. PERHAPS
BECAUSE WITH THE PATIENCE OF A
SAINT WE SLOW FERMENT IT
FOR A FULL SEVEN DAYS TO GIVE IT A
RICH, DEEP FLAVOUR; A PROCESS OUR
BREWERS CALL ‘BLESSED BY THE
SABBATH’. FOR ABBOT DEVOTEES TO
DRINK ANYTHING ELSE WOULD BE
NOTHING SORT OF BLASPHEMY. AMEN.

But I wouldn’t let Abbot’s Ale have the last word, notwithstanding the fact that it has been fermented for a ‘full seven days’ (it takes as long to make Abbot’s Ale as it took God to make the world and perhaps I shouldn’t feel like waiting that long!), as I have been recently apprised of a major new discovery:

Carlsberg Tetley reveals a new product it calls ‘the holy grail of the drinks industry’.

The Observer, 1 September 1996

Now, after this, I can rest in peace. And so can this chapter.

----------------------
[1] Shandy is beer with sprite and snakebite is lager with cider.

© Copyright by Spiros Doikas

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