Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Cigarettes and Alcohol

I stopped smoking (again) about a year ago and almost immediately discovered that beer (that being the brown stuff so beloved of CAMRA, which I've always drunk) tastes odd, and slightly unpleasant, without the addition of a cigarette to the mix. So unpleasant have I found some previously favoured beers that I left almost an entire pint of Caley 80 in a pub last week, all but untouched.

As it turns out, I've almost started smoking again in earnest (J's fault, not mine - she started again ages ago) and going to the pub last night should therefore have been a positive delight.

Except you can't smoke in Scottish pubs any more. Which is crap, even on a relatively nice night like last night.

Apart from the wind chill factor in permanently gusty Edinburgh, you are also open to being harangued by a man carrying his shoes in his hands and shouting at a phone box, who might well wander over to tell you quite forcefully that eating seaweed counters the carcinogenic properties of nicotine. Although - if very recent experience is anything to go by - he probably won't express himself half as politely as that.

And back inside the pub, the beer still tastes rotten because you can't smoke and drink at the same time. Hence I actually drank bottles of Budweiser last night (and not the proper Bud, according to Scott and Andrew) which was quite vile, but it's lager so at least I expected it to be horrible.

I won't live longer because I'll be smoking less, I'll live longer because the only drink I now like the taste of is water.
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10 Comments:

Blogger TimeWarden said...

The guy carrying his shoes, shouting at a phone box, was probably Jon Pertwee still wandering around in episode one of "Spearhead from Space"!

1:15 am  
Blogger Stuart Douglas said...

If only.

But I can't imagine Pertwee - even in post-regenerative shock - smelling quite so much of public toilets and extra strong lager.

9:36 am  
Blogger SAF said...

Lol. For one thing, timewarden beat me to what I was going to say. For another, Stuart paints a highly alternative picture of Doctor Who - not even one destined for a Big Finish Unbound, I'll warrant :)

11:05 am  
Blogger Stuart Douglas said...

SAF: "not even one destined for a Big Finish Unbound"

Don't know about that - haven't you listened to 'Exile'?

2:08 pm  
Blogger Stuart Douglas said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

2:09 pm  
Blogger SAF said...

Ooer, no, haven't heard that one. Mind you there's huge chunks of the BF catalogue I've not yet listened to.

11:11 pm  
Blogger Stuart Douglas said...

SAF: "Ooer, no, haven't heard that one."

Bear in mind that was in no way a recommendation. Even using the very low quality bar set by his other work, 'Exile' is easily the worst thing Nick Briggs has ever written - and he wrote 'Sword of Orion', 'The Sirens of Time' and that incredibly unfunny corrdior sketch.

'Exile' is so bad it makes 'The Rapture' look half-way competent (and if that's another BF you haven't heard, I wouldn't recommend that either :)

8:26 am  
Blogger SAF said...

As it happens I have already had 'The Rapture' unrecommended to me. 'Sword Of Orion' I fell asleep in, so whether that counts as having heard it or not I really couldn't say. :)

11:04 am  
Blogger Scott Liddell said...

It isn't proper Bud, this is real Bud.

8:54 pm  
Blogger Stuart Douglas said...

Scott: "It isn't proper Bud, this is real Bud"

I refer the honourable gentleman to the second link in my original post.

9:24 pm  

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