This weekend I have been drinking in a very funny routine. On Friday, I had decided I will not drink and I was home by 5pm. A friend called in the name of business at 8pm and there I was going back to town. Unfortunately, he had nothing buy-able and so I decided to down my frustrations with many Vodka shots. I always insist, please look the product that you are selling. Guy was talking 1 Billion and he could not afford beer for Ksh 150.
Nway I was happy Yesterday when I watched my favorite team in England take the trophy and I decided to summarize the season that was.
It is amazing that after 35 years, Manchester City has finally won a cup. The FA cup which is the oldest in the English History.
Birmingham also deserves a pat on the back. The lads really thrashed the gooners on that fateful Sunday that I will never forget.
Too bad they will be relegated. They make history as the first team to win a trophy and get relegated in the same season.
Fare thee well West Ham, Blackpool and Birmingham.
Kudos to Sunderland for hammering the Blues home and away. We really deserved those six points you denied them.
Newcastle and Wolves really tried. A clap for them too.
Aston Villa, you gotta get serious, with likes of Bent, you shouldn't finish below 10.
Everton, you also need to get your groove back.
Tottenham, it is great keeping up with the pace. Redknapp is a good manager. *Wenger can you read this*
Manchester City should drop off the name Manchester. They should by now realize that regardless of who you buy, you still lose. Ask Mourinho.
Moving on to The field of Anne, We gotta give it up for one Kenny Daglish. He has proven that all a team needs to win is the spirit. Kudos to Luis Suarez although he screwed us at out 3-nil defeat.
I am still amazed that Arsenal are retaining Wenger Again?? Even if he has shares, please let him rest. He even accepted the Sir Alex is the Coach of all times.
I wonder what future Fabregas and akina Nasri are thinking of their future. I hear the tech bench at Emirates is firing The muRussia called Arshavin. So sad.
This team is good but it is too far in the dogs that even a Kenny Daglish won't work. These ones need Bob Collymore for restructuring. I swear.
Sad to see Ancelotti sent off but its the way they roll at the bridge. Alikuwa amezoea raia sana. Hufai kuingia job na ushinde cup season yako ya first.
The like of Torres made news with their barren legs for so long after they were purchased for hefty fees.
I am not sure Anelka will see himself on the pitch again.
And yesterday it was all Pomp and Red as the Real Men bagged the most coveted title in England, the Barclay's Premier League.
*Carlos Tevez can you read this??*
So sad that Edwin Van Der Saar has to leave but we will still win more cups.
Sir Alex also rubbished the thoughts that Manchester was a not so tough team.
I was Glad to see Javier Hernandez lift that trophy. He has really labored for it. From his opening goal at the community shield against the Blues, he has kept on mesmerizing.
Rooney still has his groove on. Papa Kai started with the wrong footing going barren for long periods, a small injury but he gave us the goal of the century. The Man City Bicycle kick that has never been so perfect. Up to date, Given is still twitching at the thought of that goal.
Giggs has seen the dusk of another season. This guy deserves knighting. He has played for the United for 20 years. Wooow!!
Kudos to Michael Owen. He scored the last goal of the Season for the Red Devils.
Kudos to The team that Will represent England at the Champion League Finals.
and Kudos to all football fans for the lively times.
Not forgetting DSTV for showing us just a few minutes of the celebration unlike last season when we saw the Blues for 2 hours even when they got home from the match. *Read this multichoice*
And 5 beers for me because I remained a faithful fan even when Wolves broke our unbeaten record and when Liverpool hammered us 3-1.
After I had spent too much money on expensive beer in campus, someone(can't remember who) introduced me to cheap beer. This is the tax free beer that is sold in Military Messes common known as AFCO beer. If I was on my third bottle I could define AFCO but now I need this piece of the brain to finish this blog post.
I later came to realize that there were many AFCOs around town. One was however full of university students and young guys who were employed but did not get enough to finance a full blown drinking spree. Not that people who drink at AFCO are poor. They are just good in personal financial management (probably better that you). I will not give names of places for obvious reasons but my first few visits at AFCO already told my mind that I was hooked to the place. I could buy enough beers to get me high with only 300 bob.
It was AFCO that I meant with the real DDOs' (daily drinking officers). These were people whose lives revolved around work and the pub. Whenever they were not sleeping or working, they were boozing.
One day when we were busy falling the brown bottles standing in the crate, an officer opened up and started saying he had problems with the landlord and the story went on and on. I later realized that since AFCO does not sell beer on credit, the officers always made sure that they had money for beer. This even meant avoiding paying rent.
Now that there is sincere love for beer. There are also times that I and a couple of my friends have paid rent late after drinking part of the salary before paying rent. These are not times that I would like to remember.
I think that beer was meant for enjoyment and although it is food and classified under a sot's basic needs, shelter is also a basic need and priority rules that shelter should be sorted first. I don't think a respectable beer drinker should sleep outside due to rent issues.
Is this where you would want to go home after having enough beers?
If you know someone who tries to drown their sorrows, you might tell them sorrows know how to swim. ~Quoted in P.S. I Love You, compiled by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
On this note, all of you that think I am an alcoholic or a beer addict. I am not!
So I got home at 6am and I have woken up past midday. On a Wednesday. Don't ask what I do. I still earn enough to afford my beer.
It all started with this lady who I took for coffee. She asked for coffee in a pub(shocker). So I ask for my Vodka as usual.
The next thing, I stroll off to my favorite joint in town to catch up with friends.
Kama kawaida;
First double Vodka with a mixer and rocks,
Second double with a mixer and rocks,
Third double with rocks only - no mixer,
Fourth double with rocks only - no mixer,
Fifth double - dry and sipping polepole
Sixth double - dry and flashed down the throat with the speed of sound
From there I can't remember it i took any more and if I took, either it is not me who bought or i left with an unpaid bill.
This is where the beer graph goes to Ruai. Or rather the Beer law works at an optimum as graphically illustrated below.
But there are those events that are unfolding the more I try peering at this computer thing.
Some woman who gave me a very very very serious lapdance,
Moving to the club that goes 24 hrs(won't name names)
I remember a guy being whisked off by bouncers like hot porridge in a metal bowl.
I wonder how such a night that was not planned for became so much fun?
Why don't those beer outings that we plan turn out to be as successful? (Either it rains, a friend gets arrested, you lose money, accidents)
All in all beer is good and it helps us have real fun.
And who said beer makes people fat? It just makes you lean.... Against bars, tables, chairs, and poles.
Love your Car as You Love Your Car. This is the latest addition to the Beer Commandments.
When people are headed for the bar, they do not anticipate any accidents. If there was an accident machine stopper, I would be the first to buy it.
However, every Monday when I go to the garage, I see at least 100 cars that had accidents over the weekend and most of the owners confess to drunk driving. This is only in Nairobi. What of the rest of the country and world?
On June 13th, we were watching world cup match at a pub in town then I went to drop my friends in some town suburb. I had drunk 5 beers and those are enough to get me drunk on a normal day but I can drive home. Just after dropping my friends, I was called by another buddy who was having a birthday party in town. So instead of driving home, I drove to town again. I drunk 4 more beers after chewing on a few pieces of meat. The mistake I did was to forget that I had already drunk 5 beers. I drunk like the latter 4 beers like they were my first beers that day. I managed to stagger to the car but what happened on my way out of town can only be explained by the photo below.
I am glad I got out of this mess alive. I did not stop drinking beer but I learned a lesson. Do not drink and drive.
But that is just me.
I came across an interesting blog that says that God is against drunk drivers. But again I thought, the pastor in this blog is arguably right and wrong at the same time. It is the same God who gives people good jobs in breweries and the list of good things that come from beer is endless.
There are many other accidents that have left people in critical conditions.
As much as we are not stopping drinking beer even if the time is up and the lights are off, we should not drive when drunk. It risks our lives and those of others.
The media has been campaigning against drunk driving like in This case. The celebrities have not been left behind and they too had a campaign called Si Lazima. If we do not listen, we will have our lives to lose and this Tribute will start making sense to us too.
There was a time that car wrecks were put up at strategic places like Muthaiga round about and the Museum Hill Roundabout. These did not stay for long since both roads were expanded almost a couple of months after they were placed there. But they were good reminders that even us beer lovers have a life to live after we walk out of the bar. The wreck that was at muthaiga round about is shown below:
Take note of the message next to the wreck (The driver of this car had one too. He never got home for X-mas).
Hic! Just like we take beer in the pub away from our children, (sipping a vodka to punctuate my strong message) Let us get designated drivers and avoid driving when we are high.
Let us all decide.
In 1759, Arthur Guinness had been toying with the idea of roasting Barley before it was malted since the time he opened his brewery in 1725. Many lovers of Guinness do not know why Guinness is usually tagged to the year 1759. It was in this year that Arthur eventually made the brew that he had always wanted to make from the roasted barley. Guinness is loved for its burnt flavor (derived from the burnt barley) and its thick cream which is derived from mixing the brew with nitrogen. Enough with the science, that is the Guinness story.
Different sots like sharing stories over their beers (I Included). The story I shared above was given to me one time when we were drinking at some pub in Westlands. You should have seen the faces of the other drunkards shining with awe.
The story teller would start by asking another Guinness drinker, "Do you know you are drinking a very peculiar beer?"
As usual in the beer circles an argument would ensue with the other drunkard replying, "Beer is beer, I just drink Guinness because If I drink Tusker, I will take 10 and I will not get tipsy."
From there the story teller urges the other sots to pull their bar stools closer and he goes ahead and mesmerizes all of us with his articulate knowledge of the entire brewing process of the beer from the history to the first time Guinness was exported from Ireland to England on May 19th 1769. That day I also learned that the signature that appears on Guinness was a mark that Arthur Guinness signed a 9000 year lease for the brewery in Dublin Ireland. At that time he was paying £45 every year to use the brewery.
Talk of a focused beer drinker. I think Arthur was the most focused. He knew that demand for Guinness would rise even after 9000 years of manufacture.
Beer drinkers are people of untold intelligence. They need the beers to cool their brains and to take time off their busy schedules. The next time you see someone drunk. Look for the greatness in him like Guinness's slogan states; "There is a drop of greatness in every man."
The sign off quote is one from Dave Barry (Famous American Writer) Who said: “Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza.”
Many a times, we have heard conversations at the bar counter with a sot saying he regrets the first day he sipped alcohol. All these regrets are absolutely nonsense. Not because drunks can never speak sense rather, it is because every man is a master of their own actions and when starting out beer drinking, very few people are forced to drink.
In my community, there is a song that says; "Njohi ndiri Mwalimu, wa kunyua nianyue na oria utakwenda niaikare" (beer has no teacher, he who wants to drink let him and he who doesn't want to drink should stay.) The song sums it all up.
Before I used to drink beer, I feared it because I had seen drama from my father and my uncles. There was a time he rolled his car right outside our gate coming from a drinking spree. Other times his friends were attacked by machetes while they were drinking late in the night. One of my uncles was retrenched from a good job at a parastatal due to excessive drinking while the other uncle was reduced to a hooligan by addiction to cheap liquor. The occurrences gave me a bad impression of beer. I remember telling a friend of mine who was saved a testimony that I had never smoked nor drunk beer as a testimony (not that I was saved. I was just trying to make him think we are on the same coach to heaven).
After all these happenings, no one would expect me to taste the fig. However, I did.
A decade or so ago, I remember my mother had traveled to Western Kenya for my aunt's wedding and we were left with my younger brother. The date was December 12 and I was in First Form in high school. Mum had left enough food and after making sure my brother and I had eaten enough, I left the house at around 4pm and joined my former primary school mates and friends at a snooker joint in the local town. All along I had lied to them how I was a good drinker and I even had a favorite brand (pilsner). On this day, we had all saved and we had planned to drink the night away. Each of my friends ordered a beer as they were playing pool and I also asked for a Pilsner. I paid a mere Ksh 70 for the bottle and took my first sip. It was the most disgusting taste I had ever mouthed. I just sipped thrice and I couldn't take it any longer. Those three sips were at intervals of more than 20 minutes each and I swallowed with my eyes closed and a very tightened ass. However, I did not want to show my friends that I was a newbie in the waters. Luckily, rescue came in form of another of my former school mates in primary school who came and asked me to buy him a beer. I gladly gave him my beer and I headed home with a bad headache triggered by the three sips I had taken. I went straight to sleep.
In the same month, I remember I went to visit my grandmother who lived 20 miles away and when I got to the area town center, I bought two sachets of Napoleon Brandy each at Ksh 10. I kept them in the pocket till I got home then after the pleasantries, I left at dusk and I opened the first sachet. It was bitter than cow urine. Somehow I managed to force myself to finish the dry poison from the first sachet to avoid wasting the money. I could feel it drop past the esophagus junction all the way to the Reticulum (Don't mind the biology, it's the genius that opens up when I get high).
I realized that the brandy gave my tongue a steaming effect. It is today that I realize that it was spirit and it was highly volatile leaving the tongue with a cooling effect. I happily gave my cousin the other sachet and he bought me a bottle of Pilsner. This time I downed the bottle easily but I was high like a skunk the moment I finished that beer. I staggered to my grandmother's home a happy drunkard. Life as a sot had just begun.
