Royals Sample Carbon Neutral Beer: Chuck and Camilla Chug Cold Ones

As Canadians, we're grateful for all the Royal Family have given us, namely a holiday in May that coincides with warmer weather, and currency featuring the Queen, whose craggy visage youngsters can fold into creative shapes when they're old enough to earn an allowance.

We've also noted how gratifying it is to find a crumpled twenty in the pocket of a pair of slacks and included only one tale involving royalty in our who's who of drunks, The Man Who Scared a Shark to Death and Other True Tales of Drunken Debauchery, and that concerned a footman who was adding whiskey to the water bowls of the royal corgis – an offense which, although funny, resulted in his demotion.

According to reports, the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall were in Suffolk recently, sampling 'carbon neutral' beer (there are conflicting reports as to whether it was flat or fizzy) and arriving by helicopter as befitting such an eco-friendly event.

Here are pictures of the couple testing the 'beer goggles' phenomenon they've no doubt heard so much about.

Stop the presses! Lily Allen gets too drunk at some awards gala

For those of you mercifully unfamiliar with the business of journalism (those whose chosen career path is one in which the salary exceeds that of your average busboy and does not involve having to indulge in the odd repast usually enjoyed by the family cat), there are five 'W's related to the profession.

These are the infamous who, what, where, when and why questions they focus on ('who cares?' being the equivalent to the 'and sometimes Y' for vowels. The 'why even bother getting into the profession anyway?' is something we'll get into at another time). The concept of the five Ws, along with renting a film adaptation of a George Orwell novel, forms the fundamental basis of journalism.

Now that we've saved you thousands of dollars that might've been spent on journalism school tuition rather than say, a nice vacation to the Amalfi Coast, and possibly an orange visor and a comfortable pair of walking shoes, we can concentrate on the 'who', which is exactly the question we posed to one another when a certain Lily Allen crept into the news.

Lily Allen, despite sounding like a pharmaceutical subsidiary that spits out erectile dysfunction tablets, is apparently a pop-singer (who). Ms Allen got drunk recently at an awards show in England (what, when and where). With four of the five Ws covered, the 'why' that's left is self-explanatory, as having to sit through anything dubbed 'The Glamour Awards' beyond catching the odd glimpse of a boob, seems to be a recipe for catching up on those summer novels and at the very least, sneaking a quart of rum into an oversized handbag.

Apparently, at said gala, a bouncer had to carry away the pop star whose ability to carry a tune didn't translate into being able to hold her liquor.

Speaking of her songs, between the two of us, even after snapping our fingers and getting the hotel lobby pianist to tickle a jaunty 'C' on the ivories, we couldn't come up with the names of any of them. We had an even vaguer notion of what she looked like---as it turns out, the girl at the mall who scoops your butter pecan.

So, in a nod to the business of 'celebrity journalism' (that subset of the profession that deals with 'who cares?' types of questions), we, um, salute the pop-star and turn to matters of greater import later this week--the business of Trappist Belgian beer---once the jet-lag subsides.

[Sleep-deprived Editor's note: Lily Allen, is apparently dating Dustin Hoffman's son and according to reports, they met at a VIP (actually, the source newspaper's description as both the 'V' and the 'I' seem to be lacking here) bash. "He thought she was a lovely, cute girl, but didn't have a clue who she was."]

French Happy Hour not so 'appy after all

As we've pointed out a few times here, we're Canadian and many Canadians take great pains to explain to bored foreigners who could not give two shits otherwise: we're much different from Americans. For example, the Great White North, for those of you who don't know, is an officially bilingual state, though in reality English speakers are much more well-versed in what's known as "Cereal box French". For our American friends, this refers to French language proficiency a well-fed gorilla could comfortably master in sign language, and that might lead the average tourist to a bathroom or the nearest lost and found should they be parachuted into Basse Normandie.

Colloquially, it refers to an ability to do little more in "The Language of Love that's not Italian" than read the back of a cereal box and determine its ingredients (say, if peanut products, a plastic inhalable toy or trans fats are contained therein) but would not get you off with Juliet Binoche if you met her in a bar.

For those of us who couldn't converse with an "enfant" with our "terrible" Francais, it's tempting when encountering a Frenchman to simply precede an English word with "La" or "Le" and hope not to be met with quizzical stares.

One phrase that would not be lost in translation, (like the eponymous movie starring Bill Murray should've been), is "Le Binge Drinking", so obviously adopted from the English as in the UK it's their national past-time second only to differentiating themselves from lowly continentals and not combing their hair.

Indeed, there are few countries, save for Russia or Germany, who can even begin to compete with the levels of self-ruination we've chronicled across the pond.

According to a recent report though, even France is battling the scourge of increased public drunkenness and is mulling over the banning of happy hour, that period of time between work and home life that doesn't leave you looking at your watch and wondering when it's time to punch the clock or go to bed.

Other possible measures could include restricting the sale of vodka, whiskey and other high-powered potables in discos to glasses, rather than entire bottles, that you could previously hoist above your head and swing around to the beat of 'Love in this Club' while pouring the contents into the mouth of whoever you'd like to bed that evening.

They are also considering raising the legal age to three years below that of the US, where hairlines can recede, and mortgages can be bought at the comparatively ripe age of 21. Mon dieu! Sacre bleu!

Help Wanted: $14 / Hour Boozehound

Everyone has a dream job, whether it's stuffing envelopes in the comfort of your own bathrobe, or walking dogs for the elderly in the hopes that advancing senility will result in an inheritance accidentally willed your way.

For the drinking set, the definition of a dream job is simply one whose rigors can be forgotten as soon as they've skipped off two hours early for a 'dentist appointment' that involves convening at the billiard hall happy hour.

For the seasoned boozer, whose grocery bills are regularly eclipsed by liquor store hauls, scouring want ads for new employment is daunting, especially as emergency savings are pissed away buying rounds for the lady who tap dances on the bar.

A Winsor, England man, posted a gig that is by any tippler's definition, a dream job, and one that, like the forklift guy in the warehouse who spins around in circles, involves drinking on the job (and not the kind of 'get paid to drink' gig that requires a CAT scan or your ability to memorize conversational Spanish scrutinized behind a two-way mirror).

The job poster, who recently put his father in an assisted living home and was concerned that pops was too far removed from his mates, put the notice up in the local job office, seeking a twice-weekly drinking buddy for the old timer, to the tune of $14/ hour, plus "expenses". If these expenses include buying a round for everyone in the bar because you can't believe your good fortune, we'd be willing to submit our CVs and regale the old cacker with tales from our book, The Man Who Scared a Shark to Death and Other True Tales of Drunken Debauchery. We'd only ask for a pub with a nice big fireplace, two woolen sweaters and pipes to be smoked during our readings.

According to the son, who is likely going to be left out of the will by pawning the old codger off on some neighborhood rummy, his 88-year old pa is "a very intelligent man with a physics and math degree." At least it won't be that much of a challenge calculating how much to leave in the tip jar.

Drunk Teen Swallows Apartment Key! Gives 'key parties' a new meaning

We all have our different ways of dealing with the inevitably of “last call”. Some of us order a tray full of enough high-octane booze to blind an elephant before the dreaded hour strikes. Others might drink only at places where the bartender is a childhood friend and a misguided sense of loyalty might persuade him or her to risk closure and/or heavy fines in order to keep the drinks flowing past the legally mandated hour.

But few of us are likely to be as dedicated to keeping the night alive as one British student -- pictured in the inset -- was. The 18-year-old was attending a party in the student residence and had drank six beers, along with some vodka and whiskey when his friends decided they had had enough of him and told him to go home and sleep it off.

Presumably at the stage of intoxication where not even this not-so-subtle invitation to leave was registering, the young Brit chose to fight for his inalienable right to party in a way that one might not expect from those out of short pants. In a tribute to those bizarre stage performers who consume things not meant to be taken internally, the youngster swallowed his key, figuring that all invitations to leave would have to be rescinded since he couldn't very well go home now.

Waking up after a night spent on a communal couch in the hallway of the dormitory, the youngster had no memory of his exploits on the night previous and thought that friends who told him about the key-swallowing were just winding him up. Abdominal cramps and a sore throat were enough to get him to reconsider this assumption and he went in for an X-ray -- pictured above -- which even made the attending physicians snigger (one wonders where doctors draw the line at laughing at patients? There ought to be a pamphlet for those just starting out, lest offence be given). He was told to "let nature take its course", and that he would be fine.

Nature did take its course and in what is the most disgusting aspect of this entire story... well let's just say he didn't have to pay his landlord the 20 pound replacement fee for a lost key.

Astronauts NOT drunk, says NASA: No 'Ground Control to Major Bombed'

Apparently that 'one small step for man', and all subsequent steps, (and we're guessing space walks too) have been taken in a straight line.

According to no less esteemed a publication than the New York Times (of 'all the news that'll fit between 13 inches of broadsheet' fame), there is "no evidence of crew members’ going on space missions drunk or impaired by alcohol".

This NASA decree, based on an anonymous online survey of 31 flight surgeons and 87 current astronauts done in the wake of the Lisa Nowak debacle, will finally put to bed any rumors of pie-eyed shenanigans where 'nobody can hear you scream', i.e, 'space' to the pop culture-averse. It's highly unlikely this, or any other announcement by NASA will phase conspiracy theorists though, who believe "astronauts" landed on a Hollywood sound stage and for all they know, might've been drunker than ushers at a monster truck rally while pulling their elaborate ruse.

Airline pilots are much more used to such scrutiny, to the point that many passengers would rather test the physical limits of their bowels on a long-haul bus or risk hitchhiking with a taxidermy enthusiast rather than hop on a commercial flight and risk their flyboys having indulged in too many 'Whoopie Wednesday' cocktails.

Recently, a Virgin Airways jumbo jet pilot was arrested at Heathrow seconds before takeoff on suspicion of boozing---and led away in handcuffs in front of 266 gape-mouthed passengers (including several who'd fallen asleep while the plane was still on the tarmac and had begun drooling) before investigators determined that it was only a severe case of halitosis.

As this was the second incident of asbestos-singeing breath in the span of a few months, Virgin is now, according to a spokesman, "seriously considering ordering our pilots to freshen up in the cockpit in terms of their hygiene. We might even be forced to include mints as part of our compulsory uniform."

Using breath mints to foil roadside spot checks is a well-known bit of subterfuge for the diagonal driving set, and in terms of effectiveness, a notch above checking if you share the same Alma Mater as the arresting officer (or more likely offering sexual favors upon finding out they went to police academy straight from highschool).

In other, 'he was supposedly wasted but might not be' news, it seems the driver of Princess Di's doomed ride didn't appear drunk that night, at least if you believe the account of the bodyguard who survived the fatal wreck. Trevor Rees, the sole survivor of the crash that killed Princess Diana, her lover Dodi Fayed and Henri Paul, said he would have stopped the driver from getting behind the wheel if he had thought he was drunk, thereby preventing Di from getting 'car pole tunnel syndrome'.
Next week, faithful readers, rest assured we'll resume showcasing the who’s who of the world’s worst-behaved drunks, rather than simply those that were mistankenly thought to be.

Drink and exercise your way to a longer life: study.

Like a bird feeding its young, news media regurgitate press releases before flying off to crap on other stories (such as wild parties thrown by Aussie teens that necessite a police helicopter response). We Shark Guys, however, offer the kind of sober analysis typically seen just prior to pitchers of stale beer arriving at your table.

So, instead of focusing on that story, or some drunk who stumbled his way onto the property of English footballer Michael Owen and was chased by security personnel all over the finely manicured manor grounds of his 17^th century estate, we decided to spotlight physical activity of a different sort.

If the only exercise you get in a week is the mad dash to your PC when you’re instant messaged, you’re going to want to stamp out that cigarette (preferably on your tongue, just like in the movies), crack open a window a touch, breathe deep and take note as Danish researchers recently asked, “If you don't want to exercise too much, can you trade it for one to two drinks per day and be fine?” (a fine question indeed, replacing the one that was on our noggins this morning, "What did Amy Winehouse do with all the hair from her bee-hive?)

In the latest issue of the European Heart Journal, researchers looked at nearly 12,000 Danes in a 20-year study and we’ve distilled the results for you like a fine cognac which coincidentally, we're sipping this morning to go along with our breakfast oatmeal (the cheap stuff goes IN it).

First, the bad news, the 'something rotten in the state of Denmark' if you will: you still have to exercise, and according to the lead researcher, "there's absolutely no proof of a preventative and protective effect [of alcohol] before age 45."

The good news is though, that if you actually make it to this advanced age and aren't killed by the drink or a sedentary lifestyle, you can exercise and imbibe in moderation, extending your mortality to Keith Richards like proportions while at the same time lowering heart disease risk. There's even an added benefit: you can even outlive all those finger-wagging abstainers as study participants who didn't drink and didn't exercise (and who are likely contacting their lawyers right now to launch a lawsuit against the Danish researchers) had double the risk for heart disease as those who did exercise and drink moderately.

You know what they say, "abstinence makes the heart a goner".

Woman, 110, credits her longevity to whiskey...For a taste of her whiskey, we'll give you some advice.

The life of London's Minnie Smith's has spanned the Spanish American War to the recent Vegas debut of the world's largest TV and New Hampshire primaries. In order to experience such a rich lifetime's worth of accumulated experience you'd have to either switch to a Soylent green exclusive diet, sleep upside down or develop a time machine.

Naturally, anyone traveling back in time will have to sign a release form guaranteeing they won't pervert the natural course of history and disrupt the future development of a time machine by say, telling Kennedy to duck or thwarting the Titanic ice-berg collision. The latter, for example, would excise the calamitous event from history books, add a few hundred souls who otherwise wouldn't have been conceived (if this vessel's a rockin', don't bother knockin') and remove any and all future references to the Titanic from the obits of very old people.

Minnie Smith, it should be said, is not dead yet, but 110 years young--her namesake on the tombstone pictured above an unfortunate coincidence and oversight we blame on a guest editor---we wish her many happy returns on her recent B-Day. According to the Independent, she was 14 when the Titanic set sail on its maiden voyage and her life spanned six monarchs, 21 prime ministers, nearly every Stanley Cup, the invention of the flashlight and annexation of the island of Hawaii (it should be noted at this point, that the relevance of each particular cultural touchstone varies according to region--though who doesn't like Hawaii?)

Smith, according to reports, credits her Grim Reaper-defying existence to regular drops of whiskey and boiled onions (not together).

The authors of The Man Who Scared a Shark to Death first noted the healing properties of whiskey while on a tour of the Jack Daniels distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee and credit going an entire year without a head cold to a 'walk slow, and breathe deep' injunction while ambling through the oak barrel storehouse where the hard stuff ages, so you don't have to, apparently.

[Editor's note: The Man Who Scared a Shark to Death and Other True Tales of Drunken Debauchery is available in the United States on Amazon.com, today, January 9th, the birthday of Joan Baez, Jimmy Page, and Richard Nixon]

Drunk 'Grim Reaper' Arrested: Death Warmed Over Slightly

Unfortunately, the online Christmas shopping season has come and gone so you might be forced to defer your philanthropy in the form of some promissory gift note indicating that "the George Foreman grill is on its way, I swear". Sadly, at this late juncture, no warp-speed-porn downloading internet service provider or benevolent FedEx guy is going to save your yuletide bacon and ensure your gift arrives in its intended hands by the 25th. At best, you’re resigned to rummaging through the garage for a suitable gift that hasn't been soiled by raccoons or packing a can of bear repellent for a last ditch trip to a big box outlet.

Of course, there are those people for whom a holiday gift is a priority hovering slightly above poinsettias for an off-hours plumber, and for whom you can shop worry-free as your paths aren’t likely to cross until well after the Christmas eggnog spills have been mopped up. For these folk and loved ones alike--whose stockings once hung by the chimney with care, and by February are likely to be in a moldy basement in a box alongside defective Christmas lights---may we suggest the delightful compendium, The Man who Scared a Shark to Death and Other True Tales of Drunken Debauchery, available for the first time in the lower 49 states and possibly Alaska.

In The Shark Book and in previous posts, we've warned of the dangers of drinking while in costume, not recommended either for lay-folk or those taking part in dog park productions of The Tempest, as while it would appear they would make your drunken exploits less conspicuous by virtue of anonymity, it does just the opposite.

Case in point, in Lancaster, England, a man celebrating his mate's birthday and getting tighter than a pawn shop handshake on excess lager and vodka, got separated from his drinking buddies and ended up wandering around lost and nearly naked on a beach. The man, cold and wet decided to seek shelter posthaste as Northwest England is not in the Rolodex of location scouts as a suitable substitute for Malibu. He climbed through a window of a local town hall, where according to newspaper reports he "soiled his underwear and threw them into a black bin-bag. " Stark naked, he happened upon what looked to be the Grim Reaper. Not compelled to shake hands or engage in an interminable chess match, he soon realized that it was just a costume, which he put on before wandering over to a local police station, where he unsurprisingly had to wait for several hours as this isn't the type of garment that gets you top drawer customer service.

The case, which had one probation officer leaving the courtroom in a fit of laughter, and dubbed "strange but serious," by the defense counsel, resulted in a conditional discharge for burglary and trespassing.