Drink,

I have just returned from a brief visit to the TES Opinion Boards on which the nation's teachers discuss austere professional matters such as whether they should dump their boyfriends cos they snore and how their deputy heads keep groping them in the car park. I was outraged to find some hussy considering ditching her otherwise admirable partner because he drinks five cans of lager a night. All the harpies and drabs (middle aged women primary teachers no doubt) of the day were egging her on, of course, urging her to call in a hit squad from Alcoholics Anonymous before the man's liver exploded, or he murdered her in her bed. What rubbish!
Alcohol is great. Think of just some of its exponents.

Picasso, Manet, Degas, Gaugin, Allen Poe, Wilde, Hemingway, Dylan Thomas, Pitt the Younger, Asquith, Churchill and so on, all pissed as a parrot most of the time but living hugely successful and creative lives.

I came across a great story about Churchill the other day. Apparently he was meeting a senior Mormon and the latter said
"I will tell you why I avoid drink Mr Churchill, it is because alcohol combines the kick of an antelope with the bite of a viper" to which Churchill replied
"All my life I have been looking for a drink like that"