My mum gave me two bottles of wine yesterday that she had left over from Christmas. ‘Don’t tell John – he’ll be really angry with me,’ she said, with genuine concern in her eyes.

Last night, I had just finished the vocal to new song The Girl Who Turned Into Herself, and, as I was tidying the studio, Audrey looked up at me with her big brown eyes as if to say: ‘Hey, father, you’ve just done a great job there, why don’t you reward yourself with a small glass of that lovely claret that grandma left you this afternoon?’

‘That’s a very agreeable notion, my girl,’ I informed her. ‘And, you know what? I think I jolly well will. But let’s not tell John, eh? Ha ha.’

Of course, I didn’t just have one glass. I had both bottles. My normally extra-strong resolve completely disintegrated after the third glass.

I blame Audrey; it was her idea.

This morning I feel fit and healthy and generally absolutely wonderful. (I’m holding up a big sign at this moment that says IRONY on it.)

Today – well, for the rest of this week, actually – the song I shall mostly be listening to is
I’ll Never Go Drinking Again by Squeeze.

Happy New Year to you all.

I met Reg and Nigel at nine o’clock this morning. They were coming out of the Co-op supermarket with arms full of cans of Stella Artois.

‘Are you two drunk?’ I asked, incredulous.

‘You better believe it, Davy-Boy!’ Reg bellowed. ‘Been on the whiskey all night and all bloody morning, too.’

‘Wanna make something of it?’ slurred Nigel, looking very unsteady on his wobbly whiskey-legs.

I pointedly ignored him. ‘Being drunk this early in the morning will lead you to only one place, Reg,’ I told him. ‘Hell.’

‘Or the pub,’ replied Nigel.

‘Same thing around here,’ I informed them both.

It looked like Nigel had vomited sometime in the last few hours down the front of his nylon raincoat, and Reg had on carpet slippers, no socks, and what looked suspiciously like pyjama bottoms. I was embarrassed for them. I know that people around here do not always represent the pinnacle of urbane sophistication, but the pair of them looked like escaped mental patients. (Again, not something out of the ordinary for many inhabitants of the village.)

‘We’re celebrating I.T. Boy’s divorce,’ said Reg. ‘Came through yeshterday.’

‘I.T. Boy?’

‘Nigel.’

‘Yesterday? That was quick.’

Nigel leaned dangerously close to my face. ‘Not quick enough. I hate that lesbo bitch,’ he hissed. ‘When I get the chance, I’m going to shoot her in the back and make it look like suicide.’

‘You haven’t thought that through properly, have you.’

He toppled backwards into a shopping trolley, but before crashing completely to the floor, regained his balance at the last minute – as drunken people are surprisingly able to do sometimes. I held out my hand to assist him but he didn’t take it. He made a big show of straightening himself, of drunkenly dusting down his stained coat, before half-fixing me with his eyes and loudly declaring: ‘I don’t need anybody to help me. You or anybody. You especially.’

Why am I not surprised he works in I.T.?

No.50

You will renounce alcohol.
After a few months you will nounce alcohol again.
You will go on to renounce alcohol once more.
(You will probably nounce it again next week.)

Audrey and I made the mistake of wandering past Reg’s house this morning.

‘Hey, Lawrence, come and look at this!’ He pulled me inside to show me his new recliner.

He was drunk. Ugly and drunk. His sweaty face was like a Big Mac in a bucket of beer. He had a large tumbler of whiskey in one hand and was swaying slightly on his feet. He pointed at the chair with his free hand and simply said: ‘Hah!

I responded thus: ‘That’s some chair, Reg. I’m so impressed I think I might do a little dance.’

‘You’re so funny, Lawrence. Actually, that’s Norwegian leather, that is.’ When he spoke it sounded like an out-of-tune piano.

‘Norwegian? My God! I am quite literally almost completely slightly stricken with amazement and wonder.’

‘Don’t take the piss. Here, have a whiskey and experience the pure marvel of a recliner made by angels. Sit. Sit!’

I refused the alcohol but sat down in the stupid chair. It was indeed quite satisfyingly comfortable.

‘Well, what do you think?’

‘I am never sure how to describe or define the subtleties of emotion your newest household acquisitions produce in me, Reg, but on this occasion, I can say this: this chair is so exquisitely cosy I fear I may begin to weep.’

‘It’s my whiskey chair.’

‘You sit here every evening with a big glass of Scotch and just watch the world go by? Sounds delightful, Reg.’

‘Every morning, afternoon, and evening. You should order one. You won’t be disappointed.’

‘Nice idea, but I don’t think my liver would take it.’

So it finally happened: Nelson Galaxy slept with a man.

I must say, it is rather exciting to have such a sexually emancipated character in the family, but I think he is feeling rather awkward about it now.

For Nelson, waking up with a hairy man in your bed is definitely an idea conceived in the abstract – or yet another embarrassing incident that can be blamed on the intemperate consumption of alcohol, but, either way, I am convinced he is on some kind of personal quest to redefine stupidity and heedless action. When one drinks as much as he does, anything can happen.

As for yours truly, all you hairy men can keep to your side of the universe and I’ll keep to mine.

The salty and challenging things that take place in Mr Galaxy’s life would never happen to someone as brutally heterosexual as me – as long, at least, as my sobriety does not falter.

That being said, I suppose I’m more of a tri-sexual kinda guy, really.

(I’ll try anything sexual.)

Once again the festive season is nearly upon us one and all. Hurrah!

I will have my bottle of sherry, Audrey her special chews made from cows’ eyes and Nelson will be here, ostensibly to do some recording in the studio, but mostly for his annual yuletide drunkening with his big brother.

I have threatened to try to curb his fervent alcoholic antics this year.

I remember last Christmas when, searching for a rough little provincial lassie to seduce, he dragged me to the Schoolhouse Restaurant-and-Wine-Bar in the village. We got so drunk that at one stage Nelson actually disappeared into another dimension.

I enlisted the help of one of the attractive barmaids and after an extensive search which lasted about twenty minutes – it would have been quicker had I not insisted on making an initial sweep of the unoccupied guest bedrooms – found him in the kitchen where he was trying to de-gay himself with a microwave oven and a roll of greaseproof paper.