WELCOME BACK MY OLD FRIEND PINOT

I read a quote some time ago from Henry Youngman the English born comedian who was better known in the United States of America. He is said to have stated that when he read about the evils of drinking, he gave up reading.

For a few weeks recently, through some medication counter-reaction, I myself was obliged to abstain from the demon alcohol and during that period, whilst I didn't give up reading, I found that I never actually wrote anything and was also a right old grump to boot.

My theory therefore is that great writers must need a little jungle juice from time to time to stimulate their creative talent. Now I hesitate to include myself with such alumni as Dylan Thomas, Ernest Hemingway, F.Scott Fitzgerald, Truman Capote and Edger Allen Poe but they were all outstanding literary giants and the odd tipple never did them any harm. Well not withstanding early death, suicide, hospitalisation, arrest and madness but let us not be picky here.

So counter-reaction defeated and armed with a bottle of Bulgarian Pinot Grigio, 2.99 special purchase from the Co-operative, I resettled at the keyboard. I sipped half a glass and though I began to feel a little perkier the screen annoyingly remained blank. At that point my teacher friend Simcock rang to complain about a new boy who had recently arrived in his class and obviously did not cut the mustard. I gathered this from his comment that somewhere in the rural wastelands of Britain "some village was missing its idiot".

By the time he had rung off, the bottle of wine was more than half empty so surely some resulting literary masterpiece would swiftly germinate. Sadly not, however I did take a call from Biddercome who in writing his own epic "The Full English Breakfast" had hit a wall on how best to grade black puddings. The route of a writer is a tortuous one. Having sympathised with my cholesterol bound friend I noted that the wine had almost gone and not a word to show for it on my pc.

Luckily I had "special purchased" more than the one bottle so glass replenished I tried again to recover the lost muse only to be interrupted by Spicer ringing to ask me to record some programme for him whilst he was away on one of his many jaunts abroad. I didn't take too much notice of where he said he was going, it was either rafting up the Amazon, the Chechen Khan Province of Mongolia or Tenerife, I forget.

Fat Al my Scottish friend then rang me to reopen the wounds of Murrayfield and no sooner had he rung off than Canute, my so called business partner, rang from Mexico to tell me what a great day he had just experienced, horse riding along a sandy beach as the waves lapped the shore and the sun dipped into the Gulf of Mexico. I had earlier returned from a day watching horses, trained by our clients, disappear into a murky drizzle at Uttoxeter, with the added bonus of betting on the one that fell when three lengths clear at the last. Still someone had to go to Mexico.

The second bottle of Bulgarian had now been drained and to be honest I no longer cared whether I was writing or not, however one thought did occur to me, was it the booze that I had needed to rekindle my writing endeavours or did I just need to change my phone number so that I could get the odd two minutes between inane phone calls to actually jot something down.

I decided whatever the reason not to push any further at the barred door of inspiration that evening and contented my self with studying the Racing Post for the next day's runners and riders at Carlisle and it would have been rude to the good people of Glenfiddich not to sample a tot of their amber liquid whilst doing so.

Learn more about this author, Clarkson Wroe.
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