Vacation week is winding down, and I’m getting ready to leave the driving to Southwest Trains and go drinking in London. I’ll try to keep it under two weeks this time, but no promises. We’ll tramp it a bit through Soho, I guess, just me, the girls, and a couple of frog-eaters from the office.

I wonder why I never get to go drinking with Englishmen? It’s probably for the best. There’s a quote that gets bandied about, especially in the local newspapers, about England being a nation of drunks and scalawags. I can’t say much about that, but it does seem that the pubs all close at 11:00 PM for a reason. At 5 o’clock, they pour out of their offices and into the public houses, seemingly on a race against the clock to get themselves ‘faced before the early last call.

When they were finally permitted to stay open past 11, in the hope that the binge-drinking would abate in light of longer opening hours, they found themselves doubly-cursed in that the Englishmen were every bit as drunk at 11, but didn’t have to go home. All pubs here are set up so that you have to go to the counter to get your drinks, instead of having them brought to your table. There’s a built-in handbrake there: a system where you can’t get any more drink once you lose the ability to walk is founded upon sound principle and good advices.

Hugs,
Rube