Alcohol free? Who they tryna fool?!

I have succeeded in eschewing all booze so far this year, despite finding myself in a pub on a couple of occasions, having to deal with the temptations of après ski, restaurant meals and a boozy night in Valmorel’s one club, the Clover (named after the margarine?). The weirdest bit so far has been the other night when, once I’d nicely settled into my non–boozing rhythm, that buffoon Chrish (who has also given up the sauce for January) thought it would be a good idea to turn up at my flat with a four–pack of Kaliber. He really fancied the malty taste of lager, apparently, and thought I might too.

What a strange, unsatisfactory experience. Like a reverse nicorette patch — tastes right (more or less), looks right but completely lacks the active ingredient. So you’re left high and dry no matter how much you drink, even more gasping for a pint than when you started because you’ve invited all the drinking synapses to pop out of their burrows and now they’re scurrying around your brain like rabbits, waiting to be blasted with both barrels of alcohol, which doesn’t happen. If you had 20 cans of the stuff, you’d just keep drinking. And thoughts of lager are suddenly back to the fore in what was looking like an easy run–in to the end of the month. Makes one wonder who the hell actually drinks Kaliber — if you were never a drinker you won’t like it, and if you were, you’ll fucking hate it.