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There was a time when….

A Labour MP has said he was regularly drinking “a dozen pints” a day before being thrown out of his party for a drunken rant in a parliamentary bar.

Neil Coyle, who has now been sober for 500 days, was ejected from Labour after being accused of racism and says he asked to only be readmitted on the condition that he gave up drinking.

He said he was “hugely sorry” for his behaviour and “ashamed” at the “dependency I had at that point”.

There was a time when that was a warm up for some Labour MPs. Combine a session bitter with hard physical labour in a mine or steel mill, easily.

Hell, there was a time when nuns had an allowance of a gallon a day.

Yes, yes, small beer – but that’s also the point of a session beer.

11 thoughts on “There was a time when….”

  1. Harry Haddock's Ghost

    You should look at the brewing records for Victorian ale. Table and Family ales were all 4-5%. Mild / Running ales were often 8%. Stale /Keeping ales could be North of 10%.

    Must have been great.

  2. “who has now been sober for 500 days”: surely ‘who claims to have been sober for the last 500 days’.

  3. @Ducky, we have been filling the spaces in our wine racks. We’ll buy a few more bottles of beer before the month ends. We have already bought a couple of bottles of gin and rather more of sherry and Madeira.

    We drink little whisky, use brandy only for cooking, and we have more rum than we know what to do with. We were given a bottle of swish gin a few months ago but we don’t like the flavour – too sweet. London Dry Gin is what we like. Gordon’s will do perfectly well. The reject gin will be used for bottling fruit. And, eventually, so will the rum, I hope. Whether we last long enough to use up these reserves time alone will tell. Nectarines in Bacardi with a dash of peach liqueur? Morellos in gin with a splash of Bessengenever?

    It looks as if our spending on booze for the second half of the year will be approximately nil.

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