I read an article this week which I then had to put down to rub my spectacles and make sure my rheumy eyes weren’t deceiving me. But no. It appeared to be a good news story about alcohol.
Aren’t such things illegal now, punishable by a spanking from the wellness police or that former chief medical officer who told women to think about breast cancer every time they looked at a glass of wine? “A small glass of cancer please, barman.” “Certainly, madam. Will it be the red or white cancer today? Enjoy.”
But hooray. A huge study over two decades has found that “couples who drink together stay together”. And they tend to live longer too. Just let me finish these Andrews liver salts and I’ll raise a glass to that.
Even more encouragingly, the study is from America, where if you ask for so much as a second sherry the number for the nearest rehab clinic is shoved into your fanny pack.
The University of Michigan study found that drinker couples also have “better relationship quality”, possibly because drinking together “increases intimacy”. Of course it does. And not just the type that finds you both dancing with the dog in the kitchen at 1am to the Killers. You’re obviously going to be more up for Sunday afternoon “sexy times” with a cheeky Aperol spritz inside you than if you are sitting with a cup of PG Tips watching The Chase. These are facts.
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As you will have cunningly detected, I am part of a “drinking couple”. A “drouple”. Or, as the disapproving might term it, “a pair of soaks”. We met, like so many do, in drink and many years later still keep the flag flying with enthusiasm.
Let’s be clear: no one wants to be the swaying duo with barnacled faces screaming at each other in the bus shelter. But in fairness that was only the once and we’d had a long day.
Like most people, we have a few nights off a week (aka “the most boring nights”) as the 0 per cent Peronis in the fridge attest, and we do like to be in bed fogeyishly early. But there isn’t a single occasion that can’t, IMHO, be improved by a glass of cheer. (If you are one of those people who don’t need it — respect. I envy you, but I am not one of you.)
Drinking together is saying you like each other’s company and are buckling up to be a bit stupid together. That it might even do you good in an era when there seems to be only two extreme positions on alcohol — teetotaller or dipso pisshead with a beetroot for a nose — is especially gratifying. We rarely hear from the middle-grounders, do we, the vast majority for whom alcohol is not a problem but a little life-lifter for £9.99 from Sainsbury’s and not a guarantee of being found 12 hours later sitting in your own urine with a traffic cone on your head.
The study found that drinking couples fared better than those in which one member likes a drop and the other doesn’t. Obviously. Another bonus for the drouple is that there’s no “No sympathy! You brought it on yourself” recrimination next morning when you have the complexion of a half-putrefied corpse. Because you both look as revolting as each other. Result!
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Oh. Closer inspection of the report suggests smug celebration may be premature. The study defines “drinking” as whether a participant had had a drink within the past three months. Three. Months. So that includes nearly everyone then? Boo. It also cautioned against using the findings to drink more with your partner. Damn. That’s the only reason I read it in the first place.
Good with a knob? Head to Dorset
Could you guess the weight of a big knob? Then 2024 could be your year. The Dorset Knob festival is back, five years after it was scrapped for growing too big. The knob-throwing game will return in July but health and safety has kiboshed the knob-eating race amid fears that someone could choke.
Look, don’t blame me for the double entendres. It’s all true. A knob, FYI, is a hard savoury biscuit but also a word the British find hilarious. It’s doing a hell of a lot of heavy lifting here. “We don’t want people choking on a knob but you can pin the knob on the Cerne Abbas Giant,” an organiser said. If you swapped that word for “bread roll” you’d barely get any takers. Though if they held a “bap-weighing contest”, I dare say they’d raise some interest.
A sexting scandal where everyone wins
I’ve been following the Tory MP “nude pics” blackmail story and made a decision. I want in. If there’s money to be made from this sextortion lark, I’m having some. But I’m not stupid. Oh no. I realise that from people of my age, the demand for naked pictures is probably not high. Quite the opposite. People are more likely to pay me not to send them photos of my pinky, perky and whatnot.
Which is the nub of my genius idea. I’m flipping sexting on its head. If you send me, say, £50 I won’t send you a photo of me unzipping my second worst fleece to reveal the greying bra with the partly perished mesh. A bargain, no? Pay up now and you won’t get pinged with a pic of my baggy gardening slacks being lowered. See? Everyone wins. This seems far less hard work than being one of those saddos forever shoving their phone down their pants hoping to snare some dim politician with badly lit genitalia. You’ve heard of milf sites (mothers I’d like to f***)? Well, meet my new business idea: milfcs — mothers I’d only like to see fully clothed.
