A moment of sobriety

Looks like I picked the wrong week to give up drinking.

It's typical that the week I decide to go on the wagon, a major pub chain announces they are selling beer at less than a pound a pint.

I can just about remember my dad bemoaning the fact that a pint had reached the £1 mark, but that was 20 years ago, long before I had any idea about the calorific content of a pint of lager, (apparently it's the equivalent of a Mars bar).

And the few times I had taken a crafty sip of his pint I had almost wretched at the horrible taste - if only I hadn't persevered so hard to acquire a liking for the stuff in later years.

So now it seems unbelievable that you can walk into a pub with a fiver, have a good few pints and still have change for a bus ride home, just like the good old days.

If you think about it though, the whole country seems to be rolling back the years in some kind of Life On Mars timewarp.

I read somewhere that the seven inch vinyl single is making a comeback, the country is in the grip of a bitter winter with plenty of discontent around as well as an economic slump and an unpopular Labour government.

So with a pint less than a pound as well it really is like the 1970s again.

But unlike 1976, when the once great(ish) Southampton FC met Man United in the FA Cup and beat them, we got a right trouncing this time when we played them at the weekend.

Anyway, what the hell has all this got to do with anything? Well, forgive my digression but the point is that I have decided to give up the booze to help me lose weight.

I know that there are legions of new year resolutionists who are saying exactly the same thing right now and that most of them will probably fall off the wagon as soon as it hits the first bump in the road.

But I am pretty confident that I will succeed, at least for a few weeks, because to be honest I haven't really been drinking a lot for the past year anyway.

Since the minor matter of a heart valve replacement operation in September 07, (a procedure not related to being a fat biffer by the way) I have been largely off the booze except for the odd wedding or Christmas party.

It has not been as hard I thought it might be, although I probably don't go out a fraction as much as I used to just to avoid having to stand in a pub drinking soda while everybody gets hammered around me. But it has saved a fortune on taxis.

I also have to be honest and say I am actually quite happy to knock the drinking on the head for a while because I am getting just too old for hangovers at work.

There was a time when I could turn up for work as fresh as a mountain stream after a night on the lash and do just as good a job, (well that's what I thought, I expect I was actually more useless than normal, stunk like a brewery and made more mistakes as a result - but as I was still drunk I lived in a happy delusion bubble where I thought I was great at everything).

But these days if I venture over the sobriety line just a little, the next day I feel like every organ in my body is trying to tunnel its way out and a quick merciful death can't come soon enough.

So here's to clear headed thinking, sobriety and more effective weight loss. I'll raise a glass of soda to that.

It may already be working in fact as I went to my fat fighters meeting on Monday to find I have only put on three and a half pounds over Christmas, which considering I thought I was at least half a stone heavier, is a right result.

Shame I can't celebrate it.