Drunken debauchery

People react to the imbibing of excessive amounts of alcohol in different ways. With some people it's quite hard to tell if they are drunk.

Some people get a bit quiet and sleepy. Others begin to slur their words and demonstrate a distinct lack of co-ordination. Some get slightly aggressive. Some are just themselves - but more so. It tends to be very hard, for example, to tell if HF is drunk. Because if he thinks he's drunk, he just goes to bed (actually bed to sleep, rather than curling up on the table of a nightclub. That would be pretty obvious).

With me, it's very, very easy to tell if I'm drunk. I have distinct memories of schemes I hatched when half-cut and about 16 to fool my parents. Eating a large bowl of cereal was one - taking a shower (at 12.30am) was another. I'm not sure I fooled anyone. Neither of these, however, was as spectacular as the time when my sister came back from the pub and threw up over the staircase. Which was wooden and had slats between it, through which the vomit began to spill.

So, Frangelita drunk... I become considerably louder, filled with self-confidence, will talk earnestly about the most random of subjects to people I really don't know who I then declare to be the best of friends and ensure that I hug and kiss goodbye at the end of the night, I find it impossible to resist a challenge of any description (eg do a backflip/down that pint/tell that woman you can see her knickers), dance and/or sing with gay abandon (and while I'm convinced my dancing ability improves in this state, I have no such illusions about my singing skills) and generally have a whale of a time. A side effect of the self-confidence is that I am liable to expound loudly and perhaps somewhat dogmatically about things on which I have strong and quite possibly not universally acceptable opinions. For example, I'm quite pro-immigration and feel asylum seekers for the most part get a pretty rough deal. I may also conjure up wild plans for things which will probably never happen.

When I was out with my friends a few weeks ago at a very bad nightclub with some very bad music, one of them asked me if I was on speed. No, no uppers needed, alcohol and good company just seems to trigger a euphoric rush which gives me the energy to keep on dancing long after everyone else is drinking tea and eating toast.

As visitors to my mum's blog may be aware, there was some kind of family party going on at the weekend. I arrived after spending three and a half long, hot hours in traffic and immediately started imbibing Pimms. That ran out before long, so then there was wine. When that became in short supply (many, many hours later), I somehow ended up with a can of stella artois in my hand.

I suspect all the members of my extended family could now corroborate the above description of a merry Frangelita. Strangely enough, they still all seemed quite happy to talk to me the next morning.

Having taken numerous painkillers and endured another three and a half hour drive (really, horrible traffic this weekend), I went to bed on Sunday with a very bad headache. And lots of new family blogs to look up.

More on that story later.