Potato wine, false cream

'Do you have any real cream?' I ask, as I put the tub of Elmlea on the counter.

The young girl looks as me with suspicion - this is obviously a trick question.

'Um, that is cream?' she tells me, which she manages to turn into a question right at the end.

'No,' I sigh, 'it's a mix of vegetable oil and various E numbers, not cream at all. Look,' I point to it, 'it doesn't say cream anywhere on it.'

'Oh, right.' She laughs a little bit. 'No, we've just got that.'

I don't know why I bought it. I never tried Elmlea faux cream before. Maybe it isn't too bad, I think to myself. Perhaps all those E numbers make it taste just like the real thing?

So, it's pretty awful. The wife whips it up. We taste it and pull faces. It tastes very false.

'I'll add honey and vanilla,' she says, 'maybe it will help?'

'Hmm.'

We eat it with Strawberries and crushed chocolate biscuits. It's like spooning foamy vegetable oil into your mouth. We finish, as we're distracted by TV as we eat it. Then we feel sick. Very sick. I have stomach cramps for godssake.

So, remind me why this stuff is made and / or sold again?

What else happened? Well, the Colonel came round and ate 11 of my pickled chillis, desite my warning that more than 10 could lead to complications.

Cue much later grasping of belly and moaning.

On Friday night we went to an after-party, the first that has happened in months, pretty much. Well, weeks anyway. I had been pretty restrained in the pub, apart from the unaskedfor whisky that the Colonel bought for me. So arrived pretty fresh. And probably a bit over-excited.

With a bottle of home-made potato wine.

Ah, 12 year old potato wine too. Yes, it *did* taste and look like Sherry, and normally, well, who would drink a load of Sherry at a party these days? You only get drunk on Sherry once in your life, usually when in your early teens, and usually it was from your parent's drinks cabinet. Once is enough. Really. Sherry drunk is not pretty. And it hurts, really hurts the next day.

So, I drank the Potato sherry. My father had been keeping it in his garage for the last decade or so. Very nice of him.

Due to uncontrollable forces, I was full of life until about 7am, when I was escorted home, oblivious, by two nice people. They probably stopped me from staggering into the canal, something that is not worth dwelling upon.

Next day was a noon-eye-opener. Blank periods swirled around the void that was my mind. The house was empty. I made a potato rosti before I even woke up and stuffed it, at burning temperature, inside me with the coffee. Numb all day, I did little...

Thursday 12th June

Deathly tired today after a medium-late night with DrC. We started at the Gson for the latest anti-evil event, which was a surreal affair featuring a slideshow of adders and a graphic birth video (which I missed, thankfully, being outside). DrC was in jubilant mood after landing his new job, so ordered unwise whisky chasers with every pint. Something I joined in with, but with less gusto, somehow. Afterhours there was the usual angst and panic over the prospect of returning home, going to bed, and hastening the next work day, when all that is really desired is more consumption. So we head back to our gaff and crack open the wine and beer and smokes. The whisky combo soon has an effect on DrC though, and just slightly over the music we can hear the sounds of violent diaphragm action upstairs. So, night cut short, just as well, given the morning I'm having...