Drinking a Russian under the table

My Grandfather was the champion drinker of the British Royal Navy Eastern Fleet. This was sometime between the Boer and World War One as far as I can work out. His ship was on a courtesy visit to the Russian Naval Base, maybe Vladavostock, more likely Port Arthur. The Russians had recently been clobbered by the Japanese and lost much of their fleet. Anyway it was decided that the champion Russian drinker and he would have a drinking contest. The last person to fall off their chair, each at the end of a long table, would be the winner.

The drinks to be the national drinks of each country in the world so one can image a hellish concoction going down their gullets .... whisky, gin, vodka, and others I simply don't know the name of.

Grandfather was rather nervous because the Russians have a name for holding their drink so he organised a plate of raisins and between each drink he ate a few raisins. This worked well becuase as he told my grandmother on his return to the UK he just remembered seeing the Russion fall off his chair before he joined him on the floor. He suspected that the raisins had absorbed enough of the alchohol to reduce the effect long enough to see out the Russian.

The sad tailpiuece to this story was later when in hospital with alchoholic poisoning and in considerable pain the Ward Sister organised a bottle of whisky to help him with the pain. But sadly it had no effect becuase he was completely pickled inside.

Binge drinking leads to women being raped

Picked up from Kiwipolitico or could well have been Cactus Kate ....CK writes a very good post on the subject, but originally from the DominionPost.
The Wellington Police spokesperson talking about women binge drinking and unfortunately then getting raped. Of course women should be able to walk down any street and not get attacked, but that is hardly likely to happen in the real world we live in and pragmatically women of all ages should take reasonable precautions to avoid such happenings. I certainly wouldn't walk some places at night cold sober, it is just common sense precautions.

Alchohol reduces our inhibitions and sometimes we make indiscrete actions ... likely sooner with a smaller female body than a large male with more bodymass to hold drink. So there is a double jeopody in the situation when the woman gets blotto in the company of a drunken male with inhibitions reduced, sexual desires enhanced, and she is simply being very foolish and asking for trouble.

It is pragmatism or common sense to take basic precautions and simply not put yourself in that position. It is tough when your peers are not using their noddle and you want to hold back but don't want to be different. But I think it is worth the effort to avoid the consequences, a baby, STD, or AIDS ... maybe all three.

Why didn't SOMEBODY do SOMETHING?

Recently there has been the story about the Hamilton Council officials fining householders who sat on their own house roofs to watch the car races ....I though that only happened with Football in Dunedin "Scotchmen's stands" .... It seems to have blown over with horrendous fines being withdrawn and that disgusting situation you couldn't argue your case until you paid the fine ... talk about getting you be the short and curlies ... but to my theme :-)

Every time something bad happens there is the inevitable cry "Why didn't somebody do something to prevent it" .... forget about one or more fools jumping off the earth and getting their cum upance ... so the poor affected officials rush around thinking up yet more by-laws or laws to further hem us into the Nanny State.

It is our own fault becuase we ask for it every time, and so the obliging officials present new rules to their councils and parliamentarians. So next time ... DON'T COMPLAIN

My son got very annoyed when I didn't smack him

Many years ago when my son was about 7yo and he and I were at Coronet Peak I had a problem with both of us. He's now in his forties. We both used bad language and I felt this was undesirable so we agreed that when he used a swear word he would get a smack on the bottom and when I swore he would get five cents.

This worked well for a few days until on reaching the bottom of Happy Valley{?} he really tore into me saying I was a cheat and dispicable bastard. This was amongst a crowd and I was extremely embarrased. I'm sure that he picked his time for the outburst because he is a brainy so-and-so taking after his mother.

The problem was that I had been working a sort of profit and loss account in my mind, balancing my swear words against his. This meant that he was missing out of the five cents for my words.
I guess when you consider his mother had made him some very ample ski-trousers a smack through them was not to be bothered about but missing out of numerous 5 cents was a serious matter.