Alcohol and The Anglosphere

morse and lewis in pub

In a special guest post, Canadian commenter Peter muses on the English-speaking world’s various attitudes to booze…

The British and Americans have more in common than language to divide them.  The joys of intercontinental blogging and a long time bedtime addiction to police mysteries have led me to understand that a shared love of the grain and the grape masks quite different attitudes to the powers of drink and drinking habits.  Put simply, try as they might, Americans can never completely shake their Puritan “caught with fingers in the cookie jar” syndrome about a very popular and agreeable, but essentially useless at best and destructive at worst, indulgence.  By contrast, the English appear to be forever striving for a serene cerebral and aesthetic Arcadia represented by the ideal of Mediterranean drinking patterns, only to buy themselves mobs of drunken louts terrorizing town centres at 3:00am.

No North American can fail to notice that the English have an almost mystical belief in the restorative and brain-enhancing properties of booze.  When the DI in a British police mystery is stymied by evidentiary complexity and needs to flee the bureaucratic torpor of the station, he and his second repair to the local pub, where whole new ways of seeing the case appear magically with the second pint. By contrast, American detectives head to a popular local eatery, where fresh insights descend like a deus ex machina half way through a gargantuan high-caloric breakfast.  No American cop-hero would take so much as a light beer during working hours without risking his job and reputation.  He may treat himself to private solitary snorts at home at night, but this is almost always understood to be a worrisome dysfunction caused by a lack of the love of a good woman.  In Britain, the station teetotaller rarely fits in and often has character “issues” that leave  him thoroughly unpopular, if not an actual suspect.

Really, are there any life stresses that don’t lead the English to reach for a bottle?  My current read is by the prolific and popular Elizabeth George and is set on an aristocratic estate in Cornwall.  Shortly after a fancy dinner party (which everyone finishes well-lubricated), one of the guests is found murdered in filthy weather on the nearby cliffs.  As the search party and police return grimly with the body…

Lynley nodded sharply in acquiescence and longed for liquor to sooth his nerves. As if in answer, the schoolroom doors opened and his mother entered, pushing a drinks trolley on which she’d assembled two urns, three full decanters of spirits and several plates of biscuits. Her blue jeans and shoes were stained with mud, her white shirt torn, her hair dishevelled. But as if her appearance were the least of her concerns, she took command of the situation.

“I don’t pretend to know your regulations, Inspector, but it does seem reasonable that you might be allowed something to take the edge off the chill. Coffee, tea, brandy, whisky. Whatever you’d like. Please help yourselves.”

Boscowan nodded his thanks and, having received this much permission, his officers occupied themselves at the trolley.

Ah well, any excuse for a party, I suppose.

I suspect that through English eyes this is all perfectly natural and only proves they have mothers to die for, but dear Dabblers, inquiring colonial minds want to know. How did you come to the conviction that drink takes “the edge” off of life’s bad parts but enhances your analytical skills and aesthetic acuity?  Is this an honestly-held belief or something you tell your womenfolk to escape nagging?  Of course we across the pond are secretly very envious, but are you likely to ever beat Germany with such delusions?

Note:  And what of the minor Anglospherics?  Canadians pretty much share American attitudes with a added dose of Nordic-like reserve that keeps us even more publically neurotic and tiresomely critical of our neighbours. Unfortunately, my Australian correspondent was too sloshed to offer any insights before this went to press .

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22 thoughts on “Alcohol and The Anglosphere

  1. Brit
    March 15, 2013 at 13:22

    As somebody once observed (Terry Pratchett?), fictional British detectives are always at least two drinks ‘under’ sobriety. They have to have a few pints just to get onto an even keel.

  2. owen.polley@talk21.com'
    March 15, 2013 at 15:30

    Mind you, the amount of alcohol sunk in some of the edgier American dramas nowadays leaves Britain seriously in the shade. How did the Mad Men ever get any work done? I suppose McNulty from The Wire is an antihero, hence his alcoholism.

    • Brit
      March 15, 2013 at 16:51

      Don’t McNulty and Bunk do their boozing after hours though, rather than using it as an actual aid to solving a case? More alarming in the US ones is the amount of drink driving they do – a dozen cans of Bud and off they go (mind you, you need at least a dozen cans of that horsepiss to feel any effect..)

    • george.jansen55@gmail.com'
      George
      March 15, 2013 at 17:22

      During the late 1970s, the Carter Administration’s tax reforms put an end to the “three-martini lunch”, or at least to its accounting as a business expense. Some time after that, Esquire had the advertising man Jerry Della Femina write a retrospective on this lunch. I was interested to read that the three martinis were all the alcohol consumed: they were an aperitif taken before the actual lunch, which was accompanied by a good deal of wine. Della Femina tried recreating the classic three-martini lunch, and found himself out of training.

      • george.jansen55@gmail.com'
        George
        March 15, 2013 at 17:28

        Read “not all the alcohol consumed”.

  3. johngjobling@googlemail.com'
    malty
    March 15, 2013 at 16:34

    Peter, Our dearly beloved Dave, Sam’s bloke, had elected to show we Brits a thing or two about good clean living. His master plan, “no cheap booze, Ok!” has hit the buffers as has a similar plan here, north of the border, instigated by Kim Il Alex, leader of the north. Both plans have gone tits up and serve ’em right. We Angles-Saxons-Celts will not be dictated to, unitswise. You have before you living proof, if proof were needed, of the efficacious nature and all round adder of the feel good factor of booze, having reached three score years and ten, still with most of my teeth and hair not quite totally grey, prostrate in well, some sort of order is I proclaim, down to a lifelong and wholly adequate supply of the elixir of life. Why, the very first words that I heard upon entering this world was my grossmutter, attending the birth, shouting “someone force brandy between my lips”
    You think British dicks are boozers, try Maigret, beer morning noon and night, plus sandwiches washed down with an absinthe, the Quai des Orfèvres resounded to the sounds of rattling empties and pigeons chomping on crusts.

    • jgslang@gmail.com'
      March 16, 2013 at 10:44

      Maigret. Now you’re talking. There is even a book: Jacques Sacré Bon appétit, commissaire Maigret, and the excellent Murielle Wenger, at the Maigret site http://www.trussel.com/f_maig.htm finds enough material to write lengthy essays, plus graphs and similar analyses, on the great man’s consumption of beer / wine / spirits.

      • johngjobling@googlemail.com'
        malty
        March 17, 2013 at 19:04

        Excellent, stout lady Murielle Wenger. Adds even more colour to a marvellous writers leading character. His description of the alcohol fuelled doings on the Marne canal (Maigret meets a Milord) rough local wine etc, an object lesson in the description of period atmosphere, the reader is there, amongst the action.

  4. jhhalliwell@btinternet.com'
    John Halliwell
    March 15, 2013 at 17:54

    Peter, call me gullible if you must, but I’m a great believer in the sobriety of the British copper, no matter how great the temptation put in his way. I tried to capture my admiration in a draft novel which has a remarkably similar plotline to that highlighted in your post (rejected by Mills and Boon, who threatened me with legal action for time wasting). Here is an extract:

    “I’ll wager you’ve got a large one, Inspector?” Arkwright, stirred and slightly shaken, pondered: if I reply ‘yes’ it may be taken as bragging; if no, a signal for low expectation. He decided that the raising of a quizzical eyebrow would best elicit an unambiguous statement of Gabriella’s intent. “Oh, my God, Inspector, what must you think of me?” Gabriella, now the colour of a Cape pomegranate, spluttered “I meant your thirst, you must have a very large thirst, having spent the night fighting with those beastly obstacles on the cliff, pulling yourself this way and that, and struggling to get your leg ov…………..would you like whisky, brandy, sherry?” Arkwright, deflated, but in the manner typical of his breed, replied “Thank you, but no; duty calls. Can I trouble you for a mineral water?”

    Okay, so it isn’t J B Priestley, but this is, and it captures wonderfully well the restraint and understated dignity of British rozzers. Best viewed from 8 min 26s:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av9BoOCDF_4

  5. johngjobling@googlemail.com'
    malty
    March 15, 2013 at 19:20

    ‘As Emmylou Harris stepped majestically onto the stage at SXSW – what must have been her umpteenth southern stage after 45-odd years making music – she told her adoring crowd: “You look good”. In response, several hundred grizzled and whisky-soaked hearts could be heard melting across the bar. In an elegant long black dress and perfect blow-dry, Harris, 65, effortlessly ran through past hits such as Wheels and Gram Parsons’s Return Of The Grievous Angel’

    Sober Americans eh? give me and Emmylou the sozzled ones any day. Personally, I’m going back to Harlan.

  6. peter.burnet@hotmail.com'
    Peter
    March 15, 2013 at 20:18

    My point was not the amount the English drink, but rather the benefits you seem to believe it bestows. But guess what, you do drink more than North Americans. If you look at these stats you will see the world’s top dozen are all Celtic/mid-European, who share “continental drinking patterns”. I believe this means you sip the day away in a semi-haze. It is in this part of the world one encounters the drink to steady nerves, the drink for courage, the drink to settle digestion, the drink to sharpen wits, the drink to aid memory, the drink to loosen tongues, the drink to stimulate or kill appetites, etc.

    The anomaly is the Nordics, a region I visited frequently a few decades ago. In all regions of the far north, drinking is purposeful and the purpose is to get somewhere between goofily tipsy and roaring drunk without unseemly delay. They love a party yoo, but alcohol is viewed warily and consumption is controlled by a variety of economic and cultural means, some effective (Norway), some not (Finland). One thing I did notice is that when they do drink, they seem to have no “little man” inside, that fellow in our heads who overrules the effects and somehow keeps us aware of where we are and what we are doing. They don’t need him because the whole purpose is to forget where you are and what you are doing . Up there, you are likely to find the Norwegian company president dancing on a table without his pants with everyone cheering suprisingly early in the evening. But you won’t find Kurt Wallender in a pub mid-afternoon.

    Americans do love their whisky to be sure. When I saw The Rum Diaries last year, I needed two aspirin at the end. But I’m hard-pressed to think of an American hero, real or fictional, whose significant alcohol consumption is remembered as having contributed to his glory or didn’t end badly.

    • george.jansen55@gmail.com'
      George
      March 15, 2013 at 20:59

      Given the apparent correlation between high latitudes and alcohol consumption, I wonder whether it has roots in self-medication for seasonal affective disorder.

      Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe and Dashiell Hammett’s Nick Charles knew how to drink. I don’t remember it as especially contributing to their triumphs, but it didn’t seem slow them down. And in 20th Century US fiction there seem to be nearly as many functioning drinkers as failing ones.

      U.S. Grant was a binge drinker during slow times, and the accounts of his binges are alarming. However, it is remembered that when detractors complained to Lincoln about this, Lincoln replied that he’d like to get his other generals some of the same whiskey.

    • johngjobling@googlemail.com'
      malty
      March 16, 2013 at 19:02

      They love a party too, but alcohol is viewed warily and consumption is controlled by a variety of economic and cultural means, some effective (Norway), this is incorrect, the draconian controls employed by the Norwegian administration have had the opposite effect (as they did in the USA) and not one that will show up in ‘stats’ showing that they, ‘stats’ are frequently misleading. The Norgies brew their own, in large quantities and avail themselves of the low cost Danish alternative, more so now that the bridge is in place, hook up caravan …Oslo ring …Swedish border …Göteborg …Malmo …bridge …nearest Kastrup drinks market. As one who had for many years exported to Norway, was best man at a Norwegian wedding and still has much contact with the snowy country I can assure you Peter, they drink as much as the Finns.

      They also chew ‘baccy, surely a far worse sin than imbibing.

      • peter.burnet@hotmail.com'
        Peter
        March 17, 2013 at 10:55

        I beg to differ, malty. They may look the same if we are talking about duty-free or Mediterranean holiday drinking (especially the absence of the “little man”), but the Finns are in a class of their own when it comes to out-of-control public drinking. Even the Russians shake their heads. There is a lucrative trade in day-drips from Helsinki to St Petersburg to take advantage of much cheaper alcohol, and full advantage they take. A Russian diplomat once told me when they leave the bus in the morning, they have badges in cyrillic pinned to their chests saying something like “Hello, my name is Jiri and I must be on a bus at 6:00 pm at____________”.

        What struck me in Finland was that it wasn’t restricted to youth or hardy remote farmers with private stills. I’ll never forget my visit to a very large dance hall in northern Finland full of perfectly ordinary-looking middle class couples all bouncing off the walls as they tried to navigate a path to the loo.

        • johngjobling@googlemail.com'
          malty
          March 17, 2013 at 16:32

          As you say, we beg to differ Peter and the Finns, whom I frequently had to admonish in my managers factory office, “morning tea breaks should not include Nukie Brown”, are lovers of the swift half, they are however rank amateurs compared with the South Koreans who simply drink from the ninety degree position until prevented from going any further, by the one hundred and eighty degree position.
          Amazing, how Finnish engineers, after the morning tea break, were willing to pass off for payment items of expensive industrial equipment without a second glance.

  7. Wormstir@gmail.com'
    Worm
    March 16, 2013 at 00:37

    Unfortunately proper boozing in Britain is a dying art. Youngsters my age just don’t seem to be keen to fit in heavy boozing within their work days like my parents did. My father used to go to the pub on many a weekday lunch time and stay there til closing time and beyond – alas today’s corporate efficiencies don’t seem to allow such leeways

  8. Wormstir@gmail.com'
    Worm
    March 16, 2013 at 01:04

    The other difference between Russian and Scandinavian drinkers and the modern british toper is that they instinctively understand the true gentlemans agreement, namely that if you are going to get pissed then everybody must get equally pissed, and that it is poor form to then mention gloatingly in the morning what the other person was doing in his cups. I would drink more than I do now (which is already a fair amount) were it not for dastardly turncoats ratting me out at work the next day

  9. Markcfdbailey@gmail.com'
    Recusant
    March 16, 2013 at 15:01

    Peter, did you notice how they described a heavy drinker as one who consumes eight or more drinks a week? Heavy drinking? That’s barely enough for an evening, yet alone a night.

    When I used to work more in the City, I regularly had to lunch with American investment bankers; I well remember their terror of being seen to even consider having a small amount of alcohol with their meal. I used to think it demonstrated a childish insecurity, they clearly thought I was a dangerous liability.

  10. peter.burnet@hotmail.com'
    Peter
    March 16, 2013 at 16:06

    Yes, Recusant, like the old joke about the definition of an alcoholic being one who drinks more than his doctor, I suppose a heavy drinker is one who drinks more than the typical Yale researcher.

    I’m afraid the lunchtime drink is fast going the way of the breakfast snort over here. To be fair, given what we’ve seen since 2008, perhaps one is justified in being nervous about investment bankers having a drink or two at lunch “to take the edge off”.

  11. Gaw
    March 17, 2013 at 21:19

    I feel this anecdote from Kingsley Amis’s memoirs is emblematic of the British suspicion of teetotallers (being necessarily respectful of The D’s editorial policy I have bowlderised it somewhat):

    [Tony] Benn I have run into only once, early in his career, when by a misunderstanding he arrived on my doorstep expected but not heralded by any name. The door was one of those with a glass panel affording a preview of the caller. At the first sight of the present arrival the thought flashed into my mind, ‘Who is this English c***?’ The distinguishing adjective is important. There are Scottish c***s, there are even Welsh c***s, and God knows there are American c***s, but the one in question could have come from nowhere else but this green and pleasant land. Something about the set of the lips.

    Other guests arrived at the same time and my silent question went unanswered for the moment. I offered drinks. Someone asked for a gin and tonic. I turned to the c***. ‘Same for you?’ He reacted much as if I had said, ‘Glass of baby’s blood? It ‘s extra good today,’ and somehow in that moment I knew him, recognised him from television. He settled for bitter lemon, ‘with plenty of ice, ‘ he added firmly. (I once heard him say unequivocally, also on television, that his sole interest in life was and had always been politics, which to my mind should debar anybody from standing for Parliament. Even Ted Heath has his yacht and his choirs).

  12. ian.james.warren@gmail.com'
    Ian
    March 20, 2013 at 15:58

    Now that Kingsley Amis has been mentioned, it seems only reasonable to suggest that all these pissed-up coppers and private eyes actually say more about their progenitors than they do about the sober, methodical and clear-thinking professionals who actually do those jobs for a living. Probably.

    I do think Peter is right, though. There still is a Romantic idea in British culture that inspiration and insight can be acquired through the addition of exciting toxins to the bloodstream. Not much to choose between Coleridge and Pete Doherty, really. Even Stephen Hawking’s computer voice sounds like it’s had a couple at lunchtime.

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