#oneaday Day 344: Very late night

It is 1am and, surprisingly, I am wide awake. And this is after an evening of drinking… well, I'm not sure I'd say heavily, but we all had a fair few cocktails over the course of 6 hours or so. None of those cocktails were astronomically, brain-fryingly strong, though, so right now I just feel quite… pleasant. Which is nice. The last few times I've had a drink I've found myself just skipping the "happy drunk" phase and going straight to "maudlin".

It was the Eurovision Song Contest this evening. I never feel like I particularly give a shit about this, but if it's on I always find myself getting curiously invested in proceedings. We missed most of the actual performances because we were out in the garden having a barbecue, though we did have them on the radio in the background, so at least we heard most of them.

Without getting too much into global geopolitics, it was looking a bit… risky for a while, shall we say, but I don't think many people will have had too many complaints about Austria winning. The song itself was a bit boring, but no-one can deny the impressive range and power of the Austrian chap's voice. Very operatic. Very impressive.

I find it curious that Eurovision is often described as being very "camp" and even "gay" or "queer" — and I'm not denying any of those things, I hasten to add — while simultaneously having plenty of performances and costumes that heterosexual people would also get a kick out of. I guess a sexy bod and a sexy outfit is always a sexy bod and a sexy outfit, regardless of what gender identity or sexual orientation you're looking at it from.

I suspect the "camp" and "gay" descriptors tend to apply primarily to the performances in their entirety: the flamboyant, overdramatic productions that most of them involve are, for whatever reason, associated with queerness, and that, in turn, gives the whole thing a distinctly queer identity of its own. At least, I suppose that's the case, anyway. I am not, I hasten to add and emphasise strongly, an expert.

Perhaps the argument runs something like "Musical theatre is flamboyant and overdramatic, gay people like musical theatre, therefore anything musical theatre-adjacent that is flamboyant and overdramatic must be gay." I think I've cracked it! Or maybe not. I don't know. I've drunk four cocktails this evening and consequently I'm not entirely sure my powers of reasoning are the best right now, and I probably shouldn't even be typing this. But oh well. It's done now. And, I think, without any spelling mistakes. Certainly a far cry from certain earlier entries on this blog. Or, rather, the tweets I sent the night before the blog after. In fact, you know what, let's revisit those for posterity. (Read from bottom to top for chronological posts.)

For context, these were sent on the 7th of May, 2010, when I was absolutely twatted off my face, basking in the misery of my first marriage having broken down and the prospect of having to move back home to live with my parents for a while. I, obviously, apologise for the errant homophobia, but, y'know, different times and all that. Not that it was particularly acceptable then, either. But I'm sure most of you reading this have some off-colour things you say when you're among friends. And, at the time, my Twitter account was pretty much entirely "among friends".

I haven't seen most of those lovely people for quite a while, though I did randomly run into "dollydaydream" at Specsavers a couple of weekends ago while I was getting a new pair of glasses. That was nice. Hopefully we can have a proper catch-up soon.

I kind of miss that (relatively) youthful exuberance. At the same time, I'm also glad I'm not going out in town on a regular basis, because going out drinking these days is expensive. Much better to just have a few nice drinks in your nice comfy home with people you enjoy the company of, and actually be able to hear one another.

Does that make me an old fart? Almost certainly. But y'know what, I don't give a shit. And now, as a great man once said: Going to bd. Fuck off. Nght night.

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#oneaday 214: You're Not Tom Cruise

I'm not Doctor Who, you're not Tom Cruise. So don't even think about attempting to invent your own cocktails.

I say this as a result of a memorable evening one night at university, a good few years back now. It was one of those evenings where we had just decided it was vitally important to get as blind drunk as possible, as is often the wont of people at university. At least one member of our circle of friends was in possession of some of the more "creative" spirits and liqueurs available, so we pooled our resources in an attempt to create The Next Big Thing.

To be fair, given the evidence we'd discovered on how easy it is to make a putridly-coloured yet remarkably tasty cocktail, we had faith in our own abilities to produce something delicious.

Shortly after arriving at university, we had all discovered the joy of the Juicy Lucy, a pint-based cocktail made up of a glug of vodka, a splash of Bols Blue, a bit of Taboo and then the remainder of the glass filled up with roughly half-and-half of orange juice and lemonade. The resultant glass of green liquid looks remarkably like what happens if you fill a pint glass with water and then squirt too much Fairy liquid into it. It also turns your poo green if you drink too much of it, a fact which several of us were unprepared for and thus spent a not-inconsiderable amount of time fretting the next day that we had some form of terrifying bum-cancer.

Alongside the Juicy Lucy was the even-simpler concoction dreamed up by our hall of residence's bar on "Hawaiian Night" (a night when everyone was supposed to wear Hawaiian shirts, and they turned the heating up full)—the Passion Wagon. The Passion Wagon was, again, a pint-based cocktail consisting of a shot of Passoa (passion fruit liqueur) and a bottle of Reef. That's it. It came out bright orange and tasted like Five Alive. It did not, to my knowledge, do anything unpleasant to the colour of one's bodily fluids or waste matter.

So going on that evidence, we figured that making a cocktail was pretty much simply a case of finding things which might taste nice together and then combining them together in a glass. Also, that vodka, when added to any drink, immediately makes something "more alcoholic" without making it taste any different.

How wrong we were. The first mistake we made was forgetting that Baileys curdles quite easily. After creating a number of drinks that looked like someone had spunked in, we decided that we weren't skilled enough to do that clever thing where you make the Baileys float on top. So we left that alone. For a while. Then we elected to try combining various different flavoured liqueurs together. The least (or most, depending on how you look at this) successful attempt was dubbed "The Brown Sauce", owing to its resemblance in taste to HP Sauce. For the readers unfamiliar with the wonder of HP Sauce, it is good on a bacon sandwich. It is less good in liquid form and drunk.

Eventually we gave up and went back to staples like Archers and lemonade. We didn't have another home-made cocktail night after that. We left it strictly to the professionals.

#oneaday, Day 164: Healing The Mind, And Flying Spiders

Sometimes, whatever else is going on in your mind, it's good to sit down with a friend and talk things over. Even if you're not a big "talker" for the most part, there's bound to be at least someone out there that you can open up to. Some lucky people can open up to pretty much anyone. Though that often leads to the whole "too much information" problem I alluded to some time back, when a former music performance partner decided to announce at the dinner table to my then-housemate whom she had never met before that day that she was suffering from considerable vaginal dryness and was there anything she could do about it as it was a little concerning?

No. Talking with someone you respect and trust is always good. So that's what a friend (who shall remain nameless to spare her blushes) and I did today. We spent most of the day (well, afternoon) sitting and chatting over various beverages and sandwiches, starting with an enormous caramel latte (which my companion added at least three sugars to just for that "extra kick", making a smiley face from the sugar and then stabbing it in the eyes because it "didn't deserve to be happy") and eventually moving on, having harassed our AV salesman mutual buddy at his place of work, to a large pitcher of delicious, summery, fruity cocktail atop the roof of Vodka Revolution.

We also saw a flying spider. This little dude, whom we christened Harold, had been attempting to crawl up the side of our pitcher in an attempt to get at the cocktaily goodness within, but was failing miserably. By about the fourth or fifth time he'd slipped down the side of the pitcher, he was obviously ready to give up. So imagine our surprise when he floated off the side of the pitcher and then whistled past my head at high speed.

We both blinked and looked at each other.

"That just happened, didn't it?"

"Yeah."

"That spider just flew."

"Yeah."

"What the fuck?"

"I have no idea."

There's probably a perfectly rational explanation for it. Harold was only a tiny money spider after all, so it's entirely possible he was just blown away by a passing breeze. Or perhaps there was a thread leading far away that we couldn't see. But it's a much nicer story to think that Harold was the one spider in the world who had learned to fly. I don't normally like spiders, but I have plenty of time for a tiny little one that has learned to fly.

Anyway.

The day was technically completely non-productive, but after a few days of feeling something of a decline in my mood, it was exactly what I needed. I wouldn't dream of speaking for my companion, but I certainly hope it helped her too. By the time both of us went our separate ways at the end of the afternoon, both of us had pleasant smiles on our faces; something which neither of us were sporting when we met up with each other around lunchtime.

So if you're feeling low, take a day out. Call up a friend, perhaps one you haven't seen for a while. Meet up. Drink coffee, beer, cocktails, whatever. Sit in the sun. Chew the fat. Set the world to rights. And you'll find that things will feel much better. For a while, at least. And sometimes, that little perk-up is all you need to keep going a little while longer.

So a hearty thanks to my companion for a lovely day.