I demand to have some booze

Old Sergei Korovin (a Russian painter dude), had it straight when he said: "There are plenty of bastards who drink moderately. Of course, I don't consider them to be people. They are not our comrades." He also said, "When someone is asked his opinion of another person, the answer is often, 'I don't know, I haven't drunk with him.'"

How true his words are. Or, let me put it like this: I don't get how people get by without drink.

When I was a youth (or rather lass), at University, I was a pretty heavy drinker. I would quite frequently do 11am until closing time around 11.30pm (taking it slow, mind, with stops for burgers. Also, I wasn't on my own).

Times have changed and I cannot drink as much, but I still say the best times of my life were on alcohol. Oh, people will say, what about giving birth? Well, okay, granted, giving birth was a pretty good experience, but it was painful. Frankly, I could have done with a drink (joke).

There are some people who don't drink. Apart from those who are ex-alcoholics my question is: why? Don't you think life is quite dull enough not to liven it up with the odd pint or gin or whatever you fancy? Sometimes the teetotaller will say, "Oh, I like to stay in control." To which I will also say, "Why?"

When I was a lass, I did frequently get into arguments while drunk, about what, I no longer remember. The last really bad drunk incident I had was a couple of Christmases ago. My husband dropped me and the kids off at this woman's Christmas party. I was in a bad mood and I started to get drunk. I didn't even particularly like this woman (I'll call her Jill) but I violently disliked her husband (I'll call him Bill).

So the guests are all chatting and Bill goes and gets his guitar and acts like some Kids' TV presenter on speed, jumping up and down and saying "Who wants to hear me do Jingle Bells?"

"Oh go on then," someone says eventually, when it becomes clear he isn't going to go away.

So he plays fucking Jingle Bells so badly I could have done better, his voice is bloody awful, he has no rhythm, but because it's Christmas I decide to smile at him.

Then someone makes the mistake of clapping.

He goes on to play one song after the other, one worse than the next, grinning like an idiot. I so want to punch him. Eventually he clears off.

I have a few more drinks and listen to Bill telling someone about how he taught himself Bengali at eighteen.

Now, I know that some of you might think that was incredibly enlightened of him, doing that, but it began to bother me that this godawful bore from Virginia had, for no good reason, decided to teach himself Bengali.

Now, admittedly, as luck would have it, he did eventually end up working in Bangladesh (where they speak Bengali), and marrying a Bangladeshi woman, but he didn't know that initially, and I just reckoned that made him a prat. I could just imagine him at some hoedown in Virginia saying, "I speak Bengali, what do you think of that?"

Anyway, I was getting drunker and drunker, and my kids were out of control and beating up on Bill and Jill's kids.

I can't remember what set me off, something Bill said about wanting to do a PhD in The Linguistics of Sub-Saharan Africa, or something equally up his own posterior, but I do remember suddenly telling his wife in a very loud voice that "Bill is the most pretentious fucking arsehole I've ever met in my life. He's the worst kind of bore. Someone who thinks he's entertaining when he's so not. And someone should take those guitar strings and garrotte him with them." Or something to that effect.

The wierd thing was, Jill didn't argue in his defence. Or even act shocked or appalled. I think she knew he was a total bore, but what was she going to do about it? To be honest, even I realized I'd probably overstepped the boundaries of politeness, but because I had no car with me, I could not leave.

The irony of the situation? Bill, who I am sure heard the whole outburst, offered to give me and the kids a lift. I made stilted polite conversation about Linguistics in Sub-Saharan Africa all the way home.

And now let's turn to you, who I am hoping are a bunch of foul mouthed drunks. Let's have it, your most memorable drunken outburst.