Scandalous drinking behaviour

Master of Puppets is a good cd.

Talking about the Russians, there was an incident during the cold war when US and Russian ships were shadowing each other at close quarters. The Americans decided to have a go a the Russians by frying steaks on their helicopter deck, knowing the Russians didn’t have good food on board. The Russians retaliated in kind by bringing up crates of vodka on their helicopter deck and proceeded to have a good time knowing the American ship was dry.

Woke up one morning with a black eye , burst nose , cuts and grazes , went to get my mate and he looked the same , we went back to the pub to plot revenge – got to the pub only to be told we had been fighting each other over a game of pool.

A friend and I went skydiving at Strathallan , went to Auchterarder afterwards to get pi55ed , we duly got pissed and found out there were no hotel rooms to be had , so we decided to sleep in the car ( a four month old Porsche 928 S2) could’nt sleep so we sat drinking our way through 2 crates of San Miguel , got bored so my mate decided to drive home , 02:30 on the A9 – flat-out , Master of Puppets blasting out the stereo , my mate duly lost control of the car , hit the central reservation Armco barrier , the car spun and hit the nearside Armco – ripping off the front passenger side wheel and strut , eventually came to at the end of a 300m debris trail , got taken to Perth Police station and had to listen to my mate getting a kicking in the cell next door . At the trial the police reckoned that by the extent of the debris trail and the length of the skidmarks ( in my pants ) he was “comfortably” exceeding 120mph – total injuries to me – cracked sternum, lacerations to my scalp and some lower leg injuries . Total cost to my mate was a 5 year ban , £1000 fine and his insurance got stiffed £30,000 by the Scottish Office for the Armco barrier – I now remind myself daily that beer is a harmful substance when used by idiots.

Where to start…

The first time i got seriously arrested (rather then ‘removed’) by Russians for planespotting was in 1993, at Mahlwinkel in former East Germany.

Even though the phenomenon of planespotters was known to the Russians in Germany back then, there are always a few who think they know better… The lucky guy who got to walk at gunpoint to the base’s HQ was me.

I didn’t speak any Russian at the time yet, and well before i was given an interpreter the balls of bureaucracy and paranoia had started rolling. When i had finally made my statement it was already clear i had done nothing wrong, but alas: the HQ of the GSFG at Wünstorf had been warned, and an official investigator would come the following morning to hear me out.

But it was only early in the evening. So what to do? A drinking binge of course! Together with the local Spetsnaz commander (Sr. Ltn. Sergei Nikolayensko) and a few of his buddies, we were put in an appartment on the base, and vodka was bought. In large quantities of course.

And so the drinking began. In total there were about seven of us, and a few more bottles of vodka (one box of six bottles, those were sold at giveaway prices at the Russian ‘PX/NAAFI’-stores, and a few more separate bottles). All bottles were emptied, and two were smashed by one of the spetsnaz-guys against his own head. Yes, you’re tough, now stop it!

I only managed to get two hours of sleep, and was of course still dead drunk when i woke up. The excellent pasta & goulash & coffee breakfast at the officer’s restaurant didn’t sober me up all that much… i guess you can imagine the state i was in when i was in front of that intelligence Colonel. Somehow i don’t remember much from that interrogation, except that when i got out the Colonel was extremely angry with my physical state in which i attended the interrogation. Everyone i had met the previous day was already quite amused with me being totally drunk (i was only 18 then), but when the good Colonel finally went away a lot of them burst out laughing.

Oh, despite him being pissed off at me he agreed i did nothing wrong. Sensible people, those Russians!

That’s brave. Was your friend a crocodile??

Comet: It all comes down to experience. I take it youre fairly strong in this department then?

Well, i was at the Ranthombore Tiger reserve walking in evenings with my friends, we walked a hell of a long way and at a corner we all came to a halt as a tiger was standing there. It tried to attack us but one of my friends bit it first so we were all safe.

I regularly drink very strong beer (12% and also 14%) and I’ve never been drunk once.

Admittedly this isn’t mine (I can’t remember any of mine) but a friend of mine, when a lot younger, was out one night with some mates, scateboarding and BMXing while drinking – he’d obviously fallen over and messed about a lot then when he staggered home he fell over his doorstep and broke his leg in two places. Being so utterly trousered he didn’t notice and crawled up to bed thinking nothing of it – imagine his shock in the morning when he tried to get to the bathroom.

Freaky.

I woke up in a rickshaw once, somewhere in Dublin. It was my first time in the city and I had a plane to catch for work in the afternoon, but I was totally jiggered. Luckily by the time I got back to the hotel at lunch time, my line manager at work was nearly comatose in his darkened room (we had paid a visit to Dublin to er, “entertain” a client with a known weakness for the black stuff and the ladies) so I got away with it 🙂

Other than that time, my scandals mostly involve dubious dancing, and kebabs with ridiculous amounts of chilli sauce afterwards.

I’ve had a hangover form snakebite……..

Regards,

kev35