Down the pub with Adrian Chiles

and I want to talk about vegetarianism to my to my dad he goes well you know you know I've been you know people always eating meat okay animals eat meat well you know animals you know dogs sniff each other's asses we don't do that but also to say we've always done it is but it's what we've always done it we've always eaten meat is it an argument there's all sorts of things we've always done subjugated women we've always done to you know crack on with that you know enslaved people well we always aren't all right well that's fine then let's carry on to his mind it's a mad argument and you will have people who say that we're like oh alcoholic you know the Plato did it or whatever they come up with yeah probably two but you know it doesn't mean you don't need to change your your attitude to it ordinary toilets aren't designed for blokes to win you know unless you're very short or very long in another sense then you're gonna then you're gonna you're gonna miss the you're gonna miss the target so since I had room why not just stick a your own lid it's nice it's a it's a it's a knob height in it goes even got a little lid flush it Bob's your uncle yeah perfect good clap mate thank you it's not easy to do well it's not easy though it's not easy it's very hard this job Adrian Charles hello oh yeah how are you yeah I'm good I'm good welcome to the Harlequin one of our favorite pubs this is exactly my kind of Pop yeah I do love pubs and as long as it's not packed a low armor of chat yeah occasionally rising and then falling for the undulating noise um that's about it really I don't I'm not fussed about any other aspect Telly can be there or not maybe a fruit machine as I can keep it quiet a bit of music my first question to you was going to be what would you like to drink but I've already realized I've jumped the gun by asking what your favorite Pub is yeah so what would you like to drink I bet I have I love an alcohol free since we are recording this at lunch time perfect and I'll break that rule and have a Guinness as well okay I think that's gonna be fade over to our table imminently um so first things first Steve Bruce is out the door uh yes thank you very much cheers um but I think he probably isn't the biggest problem there is with our club given um you know you know given you know we don't really know who the owner is or what he wants or whatever but I mean we should have been doing better with that with that Squad that we had and I've got this I've got this thing about football manager I think after every football manager's name there's a number and that number to the number of games consecutive games you can lose before getting the sack and everyone's got that number you know so I spoke to a Leeds fan this morning and I'll Ted lasso at Leeds six maybe yeah six consecutive losses um you know who's playing above themselves this year who's doing uh who's doing really well in the Premier League sorry I like Brentford they're doing well Brentford are doing the wealth and we're doing well a bad result last week but Brentford I mean he's probably got given the size of the club he's probably got nine games Frank he's not nine games before he go but he might Guardiola if they lost the last nine next nine games at Man City okay we'd be getting jumpy you know I think but anyway the point I'm making is that Steve Bruce has been on one game for for months now and you know it's finally happened I'm a blue nose I'm well acquainted with him yeah and uh you've talked about numbers there and perhaps our number has been a bit too bit too high in the past yeah I know or not a blues yeah yeah Blues nose oh good for you we're here to talk about your book The Good Drinker um it's about alcohol it's about your relationship with alcohol you're changing relationship with alcohol so tell us about it and specifically why your relationship with drinking has changed well it's sort of arose out of a program I did a TV program called drinkers like us which which I suddenly thought one day hang on I you know I drink most days before I drink every day but unless I'm working late on a program on Thursday evenings I used to work quite late so I never drank on a Thursday but I drank sort of every day and then if there was a social occasion say my 20 best friends were coming along and I wasn't going to be able to drink I probably wouldn't even go I wouldn't be looking forward to it and you know then if a friend came to see me I'm on a different character Samson for a while it's a judge actually and I was used to drink a lot with him at University and he said he turned up and he said what you drinking he said oh I'm driving I'll just have a half and I literally felt insulted it was like I mean it almost felt to me like what is this is this all I mean to you yeah yeah I know that feeling you know I mean and it's Madness it's absolute Madness so so drinking a lot I didn't realize how much till I started counting it I realized I was drinking more and more with every decade that went past and yet by any definition that most of us work with as to what is a problem Drinker or what is this thing we call alcoholic I didn't conform to that I wasn't sleeping on a park bench I wasn't waking up with anyone but when I didn't know who they were I didn't know you know I wasn't waking up in a shop doorway I wasn't drinking purno in the morning I wasn't even getting hangovers you know and I was successful you're quite good at drinking well I was too good at drinking is is the actual problem but the point was if you're drinking that much to some extent you're dependent so and because we have this idea of alcohol as a disease which is increasingly they're trying to get away from the Medics are as I understand it people think well I haven't got the disease therefore I'm fine well actually the car wasn't fine in fact the first day that I genuinely didn't know it's incredible but I thought am I a big enough Drinker to do this program and then the first day we were at home to Liverpool at West Brom and there's a pub called The Vine near the ground well I met some mates there and it was a lunchtime kickoff so I was in there about half ten and I had four pints of Guinness which is on the high side especially at that time you know especially before a lunchtime kickoff but by no means unheard of so four points of Guinness and we were filming and then bunch of the game we drew and then I got the train back to London I didn't have anything to drink in the afternoon and then there was a there was a my mate's 40th birthday party but some place in the East End somewhere and and there I had you know it was quite warm I had a couple of pints and then demanded for champagne for toast and then probably half maybe more bottle of red wine and then I was ready for back and we went back and then went to some we went to that Soho House place which it never suit me those places they just full of the kind of people I try and avoid at work genuine generally anyway went in there so another lager pressed in my hand I mean I didn't feel drunk it wasn't even it didn't feel like a big drinking day to me you know it was just constantly you know just content but I mean I you know it it didn't feel exceptional and then the following morning they came around to my flat and filmed me as I counted my cat if I counted my units I've never done that before and I'd have 36 units I think it was in one day weekly is what 14 weekly it's 14 years sorry yeah well it's the the guidelines for the most you can drink without risking half I took this is absolute Madness and then once I've worked it out I mean I was easily drinking 100 units a week because I made a mate most nights in the pub just for a couple nothing mad some nights we might have more than a couple or have a bottle of wine and then you throw in you know a long lunch in the week or a Sunday lunch and throw in a couple of big nights out you're at a hundred units before you know where you are at least I was and some people might say to you well you've got a kit you've got to go cold turkey you've got to stop drinking but this book you're talking about not doing that no I've got your own 12 steps as well I'm very clear I'm very clear that stopping completely there are merits to stop him completely um not least it's straightforward it's one kind of decision you have to make um and for some people it's probably appropriate it's definitely I think a good idea if you are drinking a lot although actually I didn't do this but it's just stopped completely for three months and in the words of somebody I spoke to it was um you said I'm just taking some time off to decide what kind of Drinker I want to be and I thought that was a really good way of a really good way of putting it um but I think this idea that the only way is to stop I think that puts the fear of God into a lot of people who don't seek who don't seek help because they think well they're frightened to death of some doctor I know I was some doctor turning around to me and saying you've got to just stop completely it's the only way you know so you know that's a that's an on you know that's a an unplanned sort of outcome yeah of this idea that you should just stop and that you know I just found a way of drinking less I suppose and wanted and wanted to share that but you know I'm not against stopping completely would you so A friend of mine has a list yeah his his top five nights out yeah of all time yeah and there's a sliding scale yeah all of them are um alcohol field so I wanted to ask you if you have a recollection of some of the best nights in your life and were there any of them have taken place without alcohol um uh shamefully probably no we're not without not necessarily they were smashed or anything yeah yeah yeah there was probably alcohol involved but in each case sorry sorry try it sorry you can only go quiet now hey hey come on Teen Titans scared the life out of me I'm sorry that's my dog oh my gosh it's quite racist when it comes to Orange people the Orange please yeah I'm sorry about that I'm sorry I'm sorry where were we yeah that's all right okay um um it but if I and I should make a list actually I will do that my five greatest nights ever drink would always been involved but I would suspect there would be a West Brom win there somewhere a big win yeah I also suspect I'd be with a load of close friends right so as Lee Mack puts it in my book when I spoke to him he said drink gets too much of the credit um probably go oh this drink yeah because the drink I wasn't I mean look it might not have been unhelpful don't get me wrong but you know it must have meant something that the Albion had won or more importantly that I was with my three you know with a group of my closest friends so that that makes it that makes it good yeah people's I guess an example would be like a wedding right you know you're surrounded by your nearest and dearest close family of your best friends and yeah everyone's drinking but is the reason why it's such a good time because yeah you're a drinker is it because everyone you care about is who knows I mean and the drink itself the drug itself is probably doing something to convince you of that you know so it's look I'm I'm not saying drinks are you know a holy bad thing throughout the bottom still make a case for it but it just needs managing yeah you know a lot of I've read you know I've done a lot about sort of religion right and and I got to thinking with religion that I was asked to I did a program briefly when I was asked to say God would could you be a Muslim could you be Jewish and you know it's the kind of thing that happens when an atheist commissions a TV program right but you know very quickly traveling around Europe talking to Muslims Jews and Christians I realized it was absolutely nothing to do with the actual religion it was just where they are on the spectrum between Evangelical Looney and sort of quite Progressive liberal tolerant on the other side and I've got much more in common with a liberal tolerant Muslim or or Jew then I have with it you know with with most Christians actually certainly from any from the head-banging sort of crazy evangelizing sort of you know intolerant end so the point of making in a very roundabout way is that the problem isn't religion it's the it's it's what you do it's what you do with it so it's a bit like fire you know fire keeps you warm you can't you can't live without heat or it can burn you up water you can drown in it but you also need it to live and I think alcohol is a bit like that it's not so much the thing in itself it's how you actually you know what you actually do with it you use it as a social lubricant it's a bonding thing that's good but when it goes beyond that and it's in charge of you and it's calling all the shots that's when you get problems yeah absolutely it makes no it does make sense to me um is there a mental health component because obviously most obviously alcohol is a depressant I mean yeah yeah well for me that I mean don't I wasn't outwardly noticing any effects of ill health I mean it turned out self-examination and medical examination I realized there were four things that were probably related to alcohol and number one of those was anxiety stroke depression which you know I struggled with uh the second was reflux you know constantly getting to the indigestion that's where alcohol is a big factor in that third blood pressure alcohol's the biggest known cause of blood pressure and then kind of most importantly add a liver scan and there was some buildup of fatty tissue you know things were going wrong with my liver so because I was such a good Drinker as you so correctly put it they they that's not a good thing in the sense that your early Warning Systems aren't there and it's drinkers like me who end up getting into problems because they've got no reason to stop when anyone says you need to drink less you kind of say well why would I it's not affecting me really you know it's not affecting me outwardly it's a briefly there's an XMP I spoke to when I was making the documentary something he said sticks in my head I was playing golf with him and some charity thing only I told him I was making the program and he said oh I'm um I'm not uh I don't drink much because he said fortunately I'm blessed with hangovers and I really struck me I thought yeah he's right that's exactly how to look at hangovers hangovers are you know a Gods breaks or you know Mother Nature's breaks on you telling you to slow down in the absence of that kind of why would you and I guess as well there are there's medication those things you've spoken about there's four sort of threats in your health there's medications right you know um I think you've spoken before about um being prescribed antidepressants or you know amphetamines or you know blood pressure anything like that and you can almost end up in a bit of a cycle or a contributing thing where if you're going through a tough time in your life you can end up using alcohol other substances as a crutch yeah as a coping mechanism I know I have before the past so interestingly I haven't if with me it's generally more about having a good time rather than with the exception of the exception of someone go through phases sometimes when I'm just utterly down thoroughly sort of anxious full of sort of butterflies and to just feeling dead or just really kind of sort of anxious and that at those times just one or two pints takes the edge off it it comes back but not any worse now again I'm lucky you know because maybe if it needed eight pints to put that to put that fire out then you know we'd be having a different conversation now you know but it's you know I'm sort of lucky you know yes I would put my hands up on those occasions I'm self-medicating but look it's a pint or two literally only that because I've done a frying where I might go if I had more than that um it's interesting because I think my drinking has sort of mirrors life events you know yeah difficult moments this thing and you're saying actually in your case you never felt that way before no the but I mean there's always an excuse to drink with me if I've had a good time to talk about a bad time he's like as Roy Keane put it to me he said well you know there's always a reason funeral a wedding you know your kids have done something good done something bad there's always an excuse there's always an excuse to drink and just like looking back I mean it's really emotional for me not emotionally exactly but yeah it was sort of emotional floating back at my drinking through the decades teenager 20s 30s and just working out just how much drink I'd poured through myself but you know I don't wait her what was I thinking he's been you know I'm 55 now it's just been so important my whole life you know it's just a bit it's just you know it's just mad and one of the light bulb moments I had I worked out that if you lined up all the drinks I'd had in my life it'd be about three miles long in the last 40 years and sort of 15. roughly you might more might be less but the point is loads now I mean it's bad enough to poured all that poison through your system all right I'll live with that if I benefits of it but if I ask myself how many of those drinks did I really need or want or enjoy how many had a purpose to them I think it's about 30 percent it's certainly less than half the rest of the time I'll just be drinking for the sake of drinking drinking right now I've had that you know four or five years ago I'm in a pub why wouldn't I yeah and I'll probably stay and have two or three I'll probably stay enough two or three more um so I just think it's just a question of being mindful all I've done is take out the drinks I'm by and large didn't want need or enjoy and then just left myself with the ones I don't want me to enjoy you know and if you can change your thinking to achieve that you can do yourself some good I think have you read Pour Me Alive by A.A Gill his Memoir well no I haven't I haven't I'd really recommend it other than being beautifully written it documents his alcoholism and its its brutality and quite so confronting way I mean it you know it's all it's piss soaked morning Tremors he means details the same way like rigs himself have a little pulley system so he can lift his head yeah to drink a glass of scotch in the morning because he's shaking so much what you're talking about is not that no it's very clear but it's it's more innocuous yeah yeah I mean that's the problem that's why I mean most the point is most of the drinkers who Who present with liver disease in the end are drinkers like me rather than drinkers like you describe A.A Gill was because there's more of us yes if you drink like that obviously because you're drinking more you're more likely to get into you know more like to get into Health difficulties but most drinkers are in the are in the category I saw a remaining although that at the lower at the lower end of it but I've been I'll be sort of gratified by there's a number of people I've spoken to have just given up drink I mean and and two of them on think of from the book one guy who advised me another one who wrote a brilliant book called from down and out to sober forever something a brilliant woman it's a really I mean I think it was self-published but it was a really good account of it sounds along the lines of what you said to always feed their reaction to the book but I mean so far everyone I've met and I'm sure there's going to be people who don't take this attitude but they've all said well you know I wish I had this early you know I wish they're not saying to me oh you know this is pointless some people it's just it's just predetermined they're gonna be like that nothing would have helped me the reason why I'm talking about this is it um Gill wrote in his sobriety yeah I think one of the best ever descriptions of British drinking culture and its philosophy yeah um and I'd like to quote it yeah if you don't yeah yeah um at legs he's um so he's gone for a ride along with the police commissioner on a Saturday night in cleethorpes as the commissioner drives me back to the train station in the dawn he asks why we can't drink like the Continentals a glass of wine with some tapas in a cafe all ages together a glass of beer and a parrot and a pair of teeth than the passageata dressing up smartly why can't we change the culture I look at him and keep my mouth shut at the station of fox trots down the line a drunk is sprawled over a bench why don't we drink like the Greeks or the Italians really because we have a choice that's why because we're from the north from the cold from the drizzle from the place where the moon drives us nuts who would want to drink like an Italian granny sip wine with a raised pinky chew a carrot when you could be out there with all your mates people you fancy people you don't people you shag people you wanted to you can go mad get totally munted you can let go why have a polite chat when you can have a legend when you can weave a myth that will last you all week that will stay with you forever why would you want to Ponce about in the grottos of Dionysus when you can get trollied in the Mead Halls of Valhalla this is who we are this is what we do or what I did do you still have a legend do you think you ever will again yeah I'm sure I'm sure I will but I doubt it'll be about getting absolutely absolutely smash I mean he's dead right there is that northern European model of drinking but I mean plenty of people run into trouble with alcohol in southern Europe as well but I mean you know I get it about the you know you know plainly we're all partner I'm gonna remember I don't think the drinking age helps I remember my dad saying when I was 15 he said difficult time for your son you know you you're too young to stay at home uh you're too old to stay at home all the time but you're too young to go to the pub so the pub is then set up as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow the Holy Grail you know the answer to Life's question Eternal question like what am I going to do I'm going to go to the pub you know so it sort of set up it's set up as a as a thing but it is I think the and I think the Assumption and I mean that look that is brilliant it's not a criticism but certainly the it's not bad with the Assumption I think a lot of us make certainly I made that everybody drinks like that yeah and in fact it's a minority you drink like that you know if you ask if you ask if you ask a drinker what percentage of all drinkers so forget about recovering alcoholics anyone not drinking for whatever reason religious or whatever you ask drinkers what percentage of drinkers are drinking within the guidelines I.E 14 units or less a week I mean usually you'll be told oh not none or maybe five percent but I mean you know the statistics suggests it's 70 percent or at least even allowing for a huge margin of error it's more than half so drinkers like me and you but and you know and others we know well the trouble is we think everyone drinks like that because subconsciously we surround ourselves with people who drink like us and when I went to University you know I must by the time I'd finished after four years I'd let's say I'd made 30. good friends to start acquaintances you know close friends and good friends you know by understanding coincidence they all drank and the vast majority drank like me so we think well everybody drinks like me it's that social norming you know it's it's a it's just it's it reinforces an almost legitimizes excuses your your behavior or your life choices because it's it's the same thing happening it's really I think it's revealing you're mentioning University there because again that air Guild peace the people who are out until four or five in the end in the morning they're young people right there yeah they're teenagers Etc and it's in that formative time of your life you're kind of telling the stories about yourself and learning who you are and trying to weave your own Legend I guess as he as he puts it but you can have a legend without drinking as people yeah who don't drink at all you have their Legends they have a good time yeah yeah that's incredible but they can have a good time you know um but the other thing he talks about is that actually in in cleethorpes where that where that was they're actually quite a fundamental part of the local economy you know taxi drivers even the police officers who are cleaning up the mess you know takeaways the clubs the pubs Etc and the in certain parts of England where that was written in 2013 I think you know the problems are more acute now in terms of deprivation and the running down of local communities the local High Street but actually it sits quite prominently and importantly within the local economy it's not just about uh yeah but no one's saying you can't have I mean no one's saying you can't you know you can't have that and also I mean the worry I have you know I'd go I'd spend time in Birmingham hopefully there's a scene in the book where I get smashed in cleethorpes By the Way galaxy Grimsby Town away with that judge who I mentioned yeah yeah but anyway yes but um I'll say you know Birmingham like a broad you know Broad Street it's like you know Valhalla on a Sodom and Gamora on up on a Friday Saturday night yeah yeah I know someone who's at Uni there right now yeah but then it was like that first day he's drinking when I was making the program in the Vine near West Brom before we played Liverpool that day I went out the back and spoke and there was a lot of Scouts that's uh sort of pissed off basically there and I was talking to them about to buy the drink kit and everything and it's a I mean the two blocks I spoke to drank once a week when it was when they went to see Liverpool without a drink otherwise they didn't at all so in total they'd be drinking much much less than me so all those people in cleethorpes or Broad Street I would wager as I walked down though if I walked through Cletus or walk down Broad Street looking around at you know you know these scenes unfold ghastly scenes unfolding everywhere I bet you I'd drink more than 90 percent of them over the course of a week now it won't affect my behavior in the same way and I won't be smashed but nevertheless because culturally in Britain it's binge drinking isn't it typically not remember well maybe it's typical you know more about this than I do but it is you're right it's once or twice a week but it's to the max but that disguises things I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure that levels of abstinence in this country are highest in Scotland and Ireland so which which what yet the consumption is the highest the the consumption per person is the highest in those areas which could because on average because so what that tells you those who are doing it are really are really going for it so but yes it's you know that's and if it's a it's a flaw in the book If you like that and it was picked out by this therapist I was talking to us talking about how he you know how the first drink really is the only one that affects you that achieves the change of state and every subsequent drink is just a vain attempt to recreate the feeling that first gave you chasing it chasing it and then but each one has less and less effect and the third the fourth or fifth and the more you drink the more you know there's a there's there's a big Pro and no con with the first string saying probably with the setting third fourth fifth the pros kind of disappear and it's just all cons you know and I was talking to a therapist about it and she said um she said do you want to say if you can keep your mind on that you should be all right and she said well and I think that's true if you can if you can keep that in your thinking that's fine but then the question is she sends you put it to me and I hadn't thought of it she said excuse me she said yeah but what if you're drinking from Oblivion all right yeah okay so and if you're drinking for Oblivion then there's something else going on you know I mean well I know one thing for sure moderation isn't going to work for you because if it's Oblivion you're after um baby you're entitled to go for Oblivion I don't know but it's and the other thing that called me sorry to sorry bang on but I think it's important it really and it was through another model a moderating drinker who I spoke to Marissa Bates writer and she said and she successfully moderates he said but the difficult thing is is that when we talk about controlling alcohol or controlling anything is it actually you know so that involves around thinking of the consequences thinking well you know what are the pros and cons of the first second third fourth fifth sixth seventh eighth drink etc etc all the things are spoken about and right your health as you grow old and blah blah blah he said that runs against almost all the advice you get elsewhere as regards mental health which is the Power of Now live in the moment don't worry about the past or the future just be here present in the moment so what do you do if you've absolutely prison in the moment you just keep drinking and just and to hell with the consequences I mean I know that uh you know that's a you know that's an over simplification of of of of what a therapist would tell you but it's a there's definitely a there's a clash there I think no I understand absolutely saying and I think they can often be quite a toxicity to some of that Wellness advice which is you know think about yourself all the time yeah I don't think it just doesn't talk about structural things but on this point about Oblivion I uh I was chatting to a reverend who was a life coach once and he told me he sat on the tube and uh it was late on a Friday night and the woman comes on he was absolutely out of her head but could still hold the conversation and he was uh sober and he said said to her why'd you do it and she said because I want to forget she she worked in a call center nine to five Monday to Friday and her night out was you know the opportunity where she could be someone else and I I guess you're right the the lessons of moderation are well particularly difficult for someone like that I don't know I feel like if you'll ever get there I mean there's other ways yes look and I understand that and look if your life's that Bleak or boring then you need drink to completely put it out your head then you know I'm certainly not going to tell anybody not to do it but I would say I would say there's another you know there must be other ways of doing it because I did that I got bullied into doing the strictly Christmas special last year where are they I mean I went away to I want to wave my wife on we went just went to Wales and obviously I said we're not doing anything not doing anything and the next you know we'll just don't work nothing and then the next thing I know strictly a refuse to take note for an answer and back to a champion polish Latin dancer on the train to on the train to Swansea to come and teach me over eight consecutive days in the village hall I had to dance from scratch and I'm I had no idea anyway she said something to me interestingly it just we got to the you know I got to know more about the date the the nature of dancers I just thought how fascinating the actual professional dancers were they were just really interesting to talk to but I mean she's very shy you know and she's got outside dancing bluntly doesn't seem to have really Interest really you know just like we said what you know what um my wife said what a couple of good Polish restaurants in London and she said oh I don't know I'll never find of a guy really I'm just always dancing and to be here three years never been outside London with people you said what's he been to Wales before no no I've been outside London anyway she said I'm not I'm just I'm not I'm absolutely not criticizing her this isn't to sort of demeanor in any way but she said I said so what do you like dancing she says and and this and and I just seen her with me it was like the wolf sort of Viennese you know just all very correct in the you know frilly dressed and everything but then I saw her in a one of the group dances they do on the main Saturday show and she was like an absolute Vixen in it you know I thought I just didn't recognize this woman entirely different personality and I'm bearing that in mind I said why did you like dances she says because I can be anybody I can just be anybody in that moment you know so I can you say in a way to say I'm a blank canvas I can just project myself onto any role at all in that I thought that was so interesting and in a way look I'm not saying you know to be a champion Latin dancer is the only way not to use alcohol to forget yourself but I mean there's something I think there's something in there yeah absolutely I'd agree with you um why do you think we treat alcohol differently to other drugs and when I say we I mean sort of socially and you know the fact that we can sit here with three cameras what point of view well me drinking a pineapple because it's just been there longer yeah you know it's um it's just been there longer it doesn't mean we shouldn't redefine it I mean you know I'll talk about vegetarianism to my to my dad he goes well you know you know I've been you know people always eating mate okay animals eat meat well you know animals you know dogs sniff each other's asses we don't do that but also to say we've always done it is but is what we've always done it we've always eaten meat is an argument there's all sorts of things we've always done subjugated women we've always done to you know crack on with that you know enslaved people well we always aren't all right well that's fine then let's carry on to his mind it's a mad argument and you will have people who say that we're like oh alcoholic you know the Plato did it or whatever they come up with yeah probably two but you know it doesn't mean you don't need to change your your attitude to it but I mean the answer to the original question it's just been about longer I mean I've and it's just it's just socially acceptable and I'm you know in a way perhaps we should see it as a relatively cheap a relatively cheap um and you know drug you know just a way of self-medicating and if you can use it correctly just accept that's what it is but I think I mean in the book I talk about meeting David Knotts Professor David not just the psychopharmacologist called so very imminent in this field was the government's drugs are and he got in trouble for saying I probably missed quoting him but I think he said taking a year is safer than horse riding or something anyway that's right yeah that's got in the sack and I was talking to him on a chat show and I said so I've never taken drugs or what's a uh you know what's a good entry-level drug you know what should I try you know cannabis they tell game whatever and like he's one born yesterday so he didn't fall for that one and then afterwards in the you know in the bar afterwards he came up to me he said I thought you said you didn't take drugs I said I don't and then I had a glass of red wine in my hand he saw what's that and I think I said absolutely it's absolutely a fair point I was going to um actually ask you because of his study where he took he spoke he if you took into context not just to damage to the individual but to the damage to society yeah yeah he had this big study which said that alcohol was actually the most damaging drug that we have available to us because of the consequences to you know social relationships uh whether it's the emergency services having to deal with yeah illness or violence or whatever um and I think that ties into the social that's why it's so interesting to me the social relationship with it because in theory it's far worse for us than any of the things that are kind of stigmatized well it is well in practice it is and not there are benefits from it which I would argue you could still well I'd still get in the same benefits from drinking less but if we all drank within the guidelines a lot of drinks companies would you know would would be in would be in an awful lot of would be in an awful lot of trouble um and it's you know and their profits are in do largely come I think from drinkers like me the ones who the minority who are drinking more in some cases much more than 14 units a week coming towards the end of our conversation together something else I've got to ask you about yeah uh the Orion or in your flat yeah uh why well I could up and I would turn it round okay why not I just don't yeah I've never thought I've never considered I mean until it's written about it particularly if you're in a relationship where you know I don't the women in my life and I've always complained about the toilet seat not being down splashes and everything which is a fair point but you know it's not you know ordinary toilets aren't designed for blokes to wean you know unless you're very short for very long in another sense then you're gonna then you're gonna you're gonna miss the you're gonna miss the target so since I had room why not just stick in your eyelid and it's nice it's a it's a it's a knob height in it goes even got a little lid flush it Bob's your uncle and you know and and and and everyone's happy and then I thought it just I mean it's weird it's not that I hadn't mentioned it before I mentioned it before there's been a picture of the paper before but I wrote about it in the guardian piece basically had a sheer desperation I've got nothing else to write that week and all of a sudden the world goes man everyone's talked about your rhino you know it's trending in America it's just bizarre and then there was some story surely made up saying urinal sales of rocketed or something but I've often wanted to move the markets yeah who would pay me to who would pay me to endorse their products I'll never come up with anything you know but this is urinal is the thing why not I know your rhino range yeah yeah put your face in the back of it or something like that yeah yeah I mean what that way people didn't like him I'd like so yeah exactly on your face I'm aware of this because as you said you wrote about it in the guardian um and the headlines in particular around your column have kind of developed a bit of a cult yeah reverence I've always moaned about the headlights and thought they were but since they work I mean sometimes I think they're brilliant but I mean they just they know more about the headline were you aware of are you aware of the sort of the cult-like status yeah you've gathered well I'm never quite sure what it's that I mean half the time that sort of taking the piss and off but you know to which I'd say look try writing a column you know I'm doing three and a half years a thousand years a thousand words a week yeah about anything I mean if you said I've got a b a column or about motoring or about parenting or about like in days or hair or something and I've got to do something every week I'd you know that's easier than writing about sort of nothing and everything but yeah there's no there have been some you know there have been some crackers for sure go on which which ones yeah I was I've got I've got a few here um I recently saw something in a petrol station toilet Southbound on the M1 but I can never unsee yeah which I thought was Unreal well I mean yeah I mean that was a line from the piece I was just talking about our public toilets not like public conveniences but in you know places like pubs and restaurants or petrol stations for some reason they just don't seem to clean them yeah you know they don't pay enough for people to clean them I don't blaming the cleaners but so they're all but anyway I happen to have a bad experience in an unnamed service station Southbound on the M1 which I thought well I've got a column to write and I can put a few people to write um yeah okay very good next one could sitting in a salt cave cure my nasal congestion Yeah question mark well that was somewhere me and um me in a mate of mine Tim Marshall you might know wrote the book a power of geography and prisons of geography yeah business geography brilliant um anyway so mate am I and um it was somewhere in fact we wrote our respective books sitting opposite each other in a little rented office space we have um but then he said he went to this place because it helped with his breathing and I just found it I just found it really um I just found it I found it really relaxing although I found what apps I mean I don't know whether I've written this but there's more I mean my my breathing through my nose improved exponentially when I read a book called Breathe by a bloke called James Nestor who cut a long story short pointed out that well the essential message was we don't breathe through our noses enough so we become mouth breathers and this has evolved over the years actually changed the shape of our heads and I know this is true because I explained to some like Medics about it who are experts in that field but I wasn't bringing through my nose because I found it difficult to breathe through my nose but I always find it difficult to breathe through my nose because I wasn't breathing through my nose so what he Advocates is taping your mouth at night put a little bit of tape yeah so you breathe through your nose at night and I've carried on doing that if I don't do it so much anymore because I've just coached myself into breathing breathing through my nose more which keeps it which keeps it which keeps it clearer nice than it was so this is this is the best I've breathed in ages and it wasn't well it might have been the Salt Cave I think it was probably uh taping my mouth probably the sellotape I've got a couple more for you if you don't mind um I've decided what to do with the rest of my life grow a lemon tree yeah well I had the lemon tree I had a pip and I put this and I put this so I planted this pip and then like through like an absolute Miracle up comes the little thing and it grew and grew and it grew until it was about a meat at all there's no sign of a lemon I wonder whether it would ever happen but I kept it there if you scratch the leaves they smell a bit lemony then I was listening to gardeners question time and they said it'd take 20 years for a lemon to appear they're not you know I said well I'll be I'll be 73 by the time this produces a lemon it'll taste good though by that time well I will it's I don't know depends where you live you'll probably be a small and pardonably sour little thing so I mean why not write that I mean somebody needs to say these things I've got actually I've got one that's crying out for a headline doing them well I'm gonna do when they get a chance I like warm glasses since I was 13. they slipped down my nose all the time we get a man on the moon you know we can invent phones without actual cords cordless phones a bit of vintage you know we're not but glasses the whole time pushing them up the whole time you know I've tried I found something called a uh well I won't name the brand because I don't want to I don't want to really dump on them but it just didn't it made my nose slippier didn't stick it made no slippier and then there's some other nose pads you get that didn't work I actually tried to print stick the other day to actually literally glue them on especially when it hot it when it's anyway so that'll be that'll be another easily headline you know a headline easily sort of parodied anyway go on I'll ask viewers to suggest to suggest the headline for that I've got one last one for you uh what is an app I honestly have no idea what's good my old man you know he looks at you know he looks at his iPod just come he's um not even I put his iPhone just in bewilderment and it's like the way it slightly looks at it like this is the moment he knows his life is coming to the end because the world's passing by and he he pours a bit at the screen and he goes what is an app what is it now but I said wait just the app is just people what is it I said I'd kind of explain it's just easy if you want to get buy a train ticket you go on the whatever app to do it but the more I explained it the more I confused him a similar one is podcasts which annoys me as well what is a podcast well it's basically just a radio program on demand is what it is I don't know why we have to do a different name frame but that that that absolutely flummoxes him as well so I've got some sympathy and look as you get nearer to that age yourself you start realizing there will be things which you know we don't get you know I don't get it drives me bloody mad with my old man that he won't learn how to text because he's hard of hearing um and I was hearing goes literally you can't communicate with him by phone but he's stubbornly refused to text and I just I don't want to be like that you know I've got it to some extent you've got to move along with the times a bit whether we all will or not yeah well exactly you know and what will it be like I'm not getting in my space machine that lets you go to Mars no it's not for me that I get sick getting a microchip stuck in the back of your head yeah um Adrian Charles thank you so much for taking my time to speak to us really appreciate it good Drinker do you want to give it a little plug uh it's just called the good Drinker how I learned to love drinking less uh yeah I'm not very good at giving copies away I've got some copies in my bag and somebody's oh I I like you cut up or dropped on my book I'm not I'm not I'm going to end up giving most away thank you very much oh there we go there it is there it is and I look a mess on the cover as well look I thought I was just smart but I wasn't um anyway yeah there it is cheers [Music] get the beers in now I'll have six pints of Guinness thank you very much a whiskey Chaser as well all right

Channel: PoliticsJOE

Views: 47,659

Keywords: Politics, UK politics, British politics, Parliament, Government, Westminster, adrian chiles, alcohol, drinking, binge drinking, aa gill, the good drinker, radio 5 live, itv football, adrian chiles interview, gmb, katherine viner, the guardian, adrian chiles guardian, british media, british tabloids, political interview, politics interview, politics news, political news

Id: XCqSM1YwtQo

Length: 49min 51sec (2991 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 12 2022