Notre Dame QB Drinks Beer! Life of as we know it is irrevocably altered

What do the US, Oman, Indonesia, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates have in common?

Well, nothing, apart from a legal drinking age of 21, the highest in the world.

To put it another way, the US is the only non-Muslim country we're aware of (though in some parts of the Ukraine, they enforce the age of 21 though by all accounts it's roundly ignored) where to consume a beer, you must be old enough to earn a college degree.

Since many so-called 'student athletes' don't, we figure they just enjoy the college experience (the aspects unrelated to the taking of actual courses), in the limited time that they have.

Members of the Notre Dame football team (seen here) were cutting loose in a rousing game of Beer Pong, a time-honored college tradition, and for some reason, this non-event made its way into the pages of the Chicago Tribune, among others.

Now, to be fair, The Fighting Irish (a bizarre name for a team whose college name translates to 'Our Lady' in French, but to be more fair, being French is not typically associated with fighting anything successfully) have a graduation rate near 80%. This is substantially higher than the coin flip figures elsewhere in the country, some of which are as low as 30% and the team is known for hitting the books at least as hard as those across the line of scrimmage.

Of course, when the rest of us were busy say, studying, we weren't cut admission breaks for being able to run a 40 in under 5 seconds, common practice so that, well, dumb kids can practice.

A Notre Dame football spokesman said Monday there was no comment from the team for the time being, apart from 'Chug, chug, chug, chug!'

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!

Get 'Em When They're Young: Brewery draws fire for billboard outside primary school

One of the more ghoulish sounding objectives in marketing is the drive to create cradle-to-the-grave consumers. A mind that is still in its formative stages and that does not yet have the capacity to think critically or to visit the website Snopes.com is likely to believe anything, whether it’s religious hullabaloo popularized by ancient tribesman who had yet to understand the germ theory of disease, or the idea that McDonald’s is actually selling something that might fall into one of the four food groups. Indeed, the latter knows that if you include a cheap plastic toy with a youngster’s nutrient-vacant meal, you create a positive impression in that child’s mind and – if he doesn’t’ end up reading “Fast Food Nation” and swearing off that kind of food forever – he’ll likely end up cutting out Mickey D’s coupons out of his newspaper when he’s 45 and about to become a checkmark next to the “grave” portion of the cradle-to-the-grave idea.

Then there are those companies who take matters a step further and hope to “Get ‘em young”, when, legally speaking, they are selling products that the consumer can’t buy until they reach a certain age. Joe Camel, is, of course, the standard bearer in this regard. A chain-smoking cartoon camel that dresses like a pimp might not appeal to your grandpa, but it might make a lifelong brand follower out of a pimply teen who may then later disregard those gruesome displays on cigarette advertising and to whom the threat of impotence might not seem all that important.

Booze companies are also known for occasionally blurring the line between applying to a youthful audience and wanting to replace that bottle of milk in a baby’s mouth with a Mike’s Hard Cranberry.

Tasmanian Brewery Boag may have gone a step too far in the latter direction with its choice of placement for a sign promoting its “St George Beer”: the entrance of a local primary school. As children enter the school, they are greeted with a large advertisement reading “There’s fun brewing”, and while the advert doesn’t show little Johnny tilting one in the sandbox, it does have some local residents concerned that the billboard might corrupt the minds of the youngster.

A 67-year-old grandmother of one of the tots exposed to the advertising was outraged, saying that it advocated binge drinking to impressionable minds. “It's saying, 'Drink, get drunk, it's a great way to have fun'." What the grandmother neglected to mention, however, is that this is 100% true and that getting drunk is in fact one of the best ways to have fun, though it’s the kind of lesson that’s better learned at college keg parties and the like.

'Pub Angels' to Bring Florence Drunks Back to Earth

Cross-cultural exchanges programs allow students to gain a deeper appreciation of other cultures, to step outside the bounds of the familiar and explore… Ah, who we are kidding, student-exchange programs are mostly about getting drunk and hopefully laid in some place other than that listed on your beginner’s driver’s license. As such, the “cultural exchanges” taking place may not be what mom and pop read about in promotional literature for these programs.

Take for example the type of “cultural exchange” currently happening in Florence, Italy. Florence, along with Rome, has seen a strong influx of students from the UK and US who spend a term of their studies over there. While these students might take a recipe for a knock-out pasta fagioli with them and be able to make an Italian person feel at home by cursing them in their native tongue, the citizens in Florence get to witness their drinking culture go from one of reserved imbibing to the more violent, binge-drinking style of boozing that is favored in the UK and the US.

Florence is looking to reverse this trend by enlisting volunteers to help monitor the city’s bars and piazzas and discourage “exaggerated drinking”. These people would be called “pub angels” (serving the opposition function of the angels we covered here) wear bright-colored vests, and go around trying to “dissuade drinkers from having one too many”. This, as far as volunteer jobs go, sounds like a right crappy one, but no mention was made of any perceived difficulty in getting people to do this.

It’s also optimistic on the part of city officials to think that a program like this would meet with any success whatsoever unless the “angels” are trained in some sort of bone-breaking martial art and/or carry pepper-spray and a stungun. Brits or Americans faced with a guy sporting a bright-colored vest and engaging in an attempt to “dissuade” them from excessive drinking are unlikely to be met with a “Was I that drunk? Pardon me sir! I’ll be on my way then.” Those who have actually picked up some of the language are more likely to offer a variation of the following: “Vaffanculo a Lei, la sua moglie, e' la sua madre. Lei e' un cafone stronzo. Io non mangio in questo merdaio! Vada via in culo!” (See above link for translation and don’t try this out on your Italian roommate before you do).

Root Beer Kegger: The Beer was Fake, the Breathalysers were real.

This past weekend undoubtedly saw its share of keg parties in residential neighborhoods throughout North America. Someone's parents nip off to somewhere tropical to forget for one all-inclusive week the burdens of home, and return to wrecked furniture, raised insurance premiums and a permanently shaken faith in young squire Johnny's sense of responsibility.

On any other day, we'd be chronicling the unholy aftermath of one of those parties (which mostly ends up on Facebook), or at least lending our support to the move to see drinking ages lowered and thus spare Ma Suburbs from having to discover a pile of forgotten a few months after the last foam has been sucked out of a keg.

Today, however, we'd like to salute the actions of some Wisconsin teens (not the ones pictured here, who would indeed be arriving on a very short bus indeed if still attending high school at their ages) who threw a keg party on Saturday -- one in which 1919 Classic American Draft Root Beer was on tap. Before your midday cocktail shoots out your nose at the very thought that we would pay tribute to a non-alcoholic event (which, with the possible exception of forced parole hearings one day, we will always do our best to avoid), let us make a couple of things clear. First, this was not a gathering of the school's society for the ostracized and the "Obvious Targets for Bullying" gang, nor did this have anything to do with some sort of youthful religious-based jamboree where kids get together and don't do all the fun things proscribed in their holy book. We're saluting the root-beer kegger as it was a prank staged at the expense of the local constabulary and school officials.

The kids were miffed that fellow students had been suspended from sports because pictures had turned up showing them drinking out of red cups. Such cups are the stuff of booze parties as anyone who has ever seen an advertisement for Beer Pong will know (FYI: "Bing Bong Beer Pong" official brass has made it known that said cups are not included with the individual units). The story doesn't actually say that the school was wrong in assuming that this first group of kids was drinking beer out of these cups -- they probably were -- but regardless, the kids came up with a creative way to stick it to 'em and also keeps the cops busy so the college kids can punch one another up without any police hassle.

They gathered together in large number, cranked the tunes and parked their cars in the neighborhood in a way that would send a soccer mom peeping out her window into a frenzy, and indeed it did -- shortly thereafter police were summoned and had every reason to believe that fun of an underaged boozing variety was taking place. They went in the house, noticed that a good time was being had and quite reasonably assumed that everybody was plastered. After giving breath tests to 90 (that's right -- the first 67, say, couldn't have counted as a representative sample) they found that nobody at the party was even the slightest bit drunk, but rather that they were all coasting on that natural high one gets with pissing off the fuzz.

We would indeed have joined that, not enough to stand a night full of root beer -- that red-headed stepchild of American soft drinks that tellingly enjoyed its hey-day during the prohibition era (telling, because people without access to speakeasies back then were all mad).

Here, for extra credit, is the video these students produced detailing their root-beer escapade:



And here is why root beer has about 3% of the total soft-drink market and will never do better than that:

Teen Girl DUI: Drunk driver, 14, with mom in car

Whether it’s wowing Guitar Hero’s aging demographic with one’s innate ability to shred, making the competition look like dunderheads in a spelling bee or doing complex mathematical equations on the back of a Hello Kitty lunchbox, we live in a society where precociousness, however smug-seeming and nauseating it is for those without kids, is celebrated.

This sort of admiration carries over to a certain extent in manners of drinking. We all admired the kind of guy who was capable of out-drinking our parents when he was 15, and, years later, we’re happy to tip him for giving the windshield a good scrub when we go in for a fill-up. But this respect does not extend to youthful drunk drivers. If there is an upside to drunk-driving, or, as we call it, the orange pylon obstacle course home from the bar, it’s that most of the time those committing this offence are older, and thus benefit somewhat from more experience behind the wheel – this to be judged in proportion with the fact that they may well be seeing two of everything through one squinting eye while peering out over a steering wheel.

When alcohol levels are high and driving experience at a minimum, all hell can and often does break loose. When the following story came across the wires, we recalled the chapter in The Shark Book dedicated to youthful alcoholic indiscretions “The Halls of Drunker Learning: Grade A Boozing”, particularly the case of the young hellion who the source newspaper claimed was then “The UK’s youngest ever drunk driver” first arrested for taking the wheel after getting soused at Christmas dinner. At 14, she was still unrepentant and made a flashy showing at a court hearing by showing up in a gold-chain plus all-white ensemble to cuss out the judge, throw eggs at reporters and clock the crown prosecutor.

Alas, this story does not involve such entertaining theatrics, but it could very well end up as at least an honorable mention when this year’s “You Deserve Another Mother” awards are handed out. The 14-year-old in this story earned her DUI stripes while out for a drive with ma. Momsy was passed out in the passenger’s seat sleeping one off while her drunken daughter veered wildly around on the road, eventually rolling the Dodge Caravan in a ditch. According to reports it took Department of Transportation officials “considerable time” to clean up all of the beer bottles and malt liquor containers that flew out of the vehicle.

"I can't even wrap my brain around how you would let your 14-year-old daughter drive drunk, let alone drive with her," said one local cop. Efforts to solve this mystery were not helped by the drunken babbling responses of the mother who went on to deny criminal wrongdoing in the case.

24 Hour Party People: UK decides to keep all-night drinking law

On Monday, we covered the growing movement in the US questioning the logic of why someone who is legally able to ruin their lives in so many ways – ie get married, fight in wars, shoot off firearms, vote, star in a porno and obtain a mortgage – is not allowed the freedom to legally get drunk and bemoan the terrible choices they have made in these areas. We support the lowering of the drinking age in the US even if it means that our border towns in Canada will no longer be overflowing with American college students tearing a path of destruction through our hotels and getting to know the lap dance providers at strip clubs on a first-name basis.

The drinking situation in Britain is at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. Eighteen-year-olds there can belly up to the bar, order a whiskey straight up with no ice, and put up with the laughter and derision of the hardened drinkers around them as they choke it back – and it’s all perfectly legal. Beer at the supermarkets is cheaper than bottled water there and what’s more a law granting 920 supermarkets, 470 pubs, bars and nightclubs “24-hour licenses” will stay in effect following the completion of a study that says crime has lessened since the bill was enacted. Basically, the place is a paradise for youngsters looking to mature into heavy drinkers in as little time as possible.

Previously, last call had been at the ridiculously early hour of 11pm, which is usually about the time we wake up and head off to the bar. Pub crawlers forced out of the bar at 11pm would then fill the streets, and in a state of frustration brought on by the desire for more drink, they would punch one another in the face. (Editor’s Note: Not everybody behaved in this way – some went home to sip a cup of camomile, while others overturned police cars.)

It had been hoped that the 24-hour pubs would prevent drinkers from spilling out onto the streets at the same time. While the government study shows that crime has lessened with the advent of 24-hour pubs, critics say that it has instead giving drinkers a goal to attain – drinking all night long before pouring out onto the streets en masse in a state of oblivion between 3 and 6am.

It could be argued that left to his own devices in one of those Hobbesian states of nature, man shouldn’t need to consume alcoholic beverages beyond 4am. Most people, barring a spat with a loved one, getting slugged in the face, or being the victim of food poisoning, will generally go home of their own accord around two or three anyway. The key here is to get a quality drunk under your belt before that late hour so you can go home, drink and dial a loved one and upload embarrassing photos of yourself on Facebook. From that perspective, it would seem that New York and Chicago have it about right with their 4am last call.

But what about shift workers and insomniacs? Alas, when it comes to matters of booze procurement, the more freedom the better. We commend Britain for deciding to keep this enlightened policy in place and not being as tight-assed about closing times as our native Toronto, which deigns to extend bar hours only during the Toronto International Film Festival (presumably celebs can be counted on to be more sensible when blasted than the rest of us).

US states consider lowering legal drinking age: Life, liberty and a legal buzz before you're 21

When I was 17
I had some very good beer
I had some very good beer
That I purchased
With a fake ID
My name was Brian McGee
I stayed up listening to Queen
When I was 17

“When I Was 17”, Homer J. Simpson

A powerful youth movement is afoot in the USA. Young Americans are fed up with the status quo and are demanding change. Countless youngsters are shaking off apathy, signing petitions, launching online campaigns and joining forces to exercise their collective power to ensure that their voices are heard in the halls of power.

Obamamania? What would a couple of beery Canadians who only watch CNN when hangovers preclude a remote control hunt know about that? (Editor’s Note: When are the people who invented The Clapper going to come up with a TV remote equivalent [one clap to turn it on, successive claps for channel flipping]? Would-be inventers have our blessings to run with this). No, what we’re referring to is the snowballing movement south of the border to lower the drinking age.

Currently the drinking age across the USA is 21, with some states respecting this more than others. Indeed, recalling past debauchery in pre-hurricane New Orleans, we were shocked to find that out that the drinking age is officially 21 in Louisiana and that the young people hooting at us and projectile vomiting off balconies in the French quarter were actually breaking the law.

The nationwide drinking age has been on the books since 1984 when the National Minimum Drinking Age Act went into effect. This act was basically federal blackmail forcing states to raise their minimum drinking age to 21 or be denied transportation money.

Recently, however, lawmakers in Vermont, South Dakota, South Carolina and Wisconsin have all, to varying degrees proposed lowering or allowing special exceptions the drinking age requirement, and in Missouri, Facebook is being used to collect signatures to get a measure on the ballot there to lower the drinking age to 18 (click here for that group's page). One group, with the less than headband worthy name of "Choose Responsibility", has even went so far as to suggest that young people be made to undergo an education alcohol program before being allowed to drink. Having written a potential textbook for this class, we fully support that idea.

The transportation-funding catch is likely to prevent any of these efforts from succeeding -- good news for fake ID providers, establishments that turn a blind eye to such matters (and generally to standards of hygiene) and that one creepy older guy in every circle of teenage friends who has no peers his own age but enjoys a special status among teens for his ability to procure booze.

Firewalk with me: Drunk burns feet in bonfire promenade

Firewalking is a technique that has been popular for centuries, ever since some fakir with a cart full of placebos to unload first gathered yokels around a coal pit and took the fiery walk in the hopes that they would believe he escaped burned feet because he was wearing the deity’s own socks and that the stinking concoctions he was doling out actually had some medicinal value.

Motivational speaker Tony Robbins was able to use firewalking to much the same effect – in his case unloading tapes and books featuring innumerable hours of him giving you advice that could be boiled down to the Fred Flintstone soundbite “Think big, be big Barney.” It should be noted that Robbins was not suggesting the intervention of a deity, but rather that spending a whole wad of cash to listen to him go on at some retreat in the woods somehow equips one with the mental juice necessary to make such a run without injury. Science-minded spoilsports later put the mysticism surrounding firewalking to rest.

The practice, far less impressive than a demonstration of one’s ability to walk on water would be, has carried on at motivational seminars across the world. (You know you’re at a bad motivational seminar when: a) you are made to pass an orange from under your chin to under that of a coworker without using your hands, and b) you cap off the penultimate day of the retreat with a firewalk.)

As surrounded as it is by an undeserved mystique, firewalking can result in injury, and some basics ground rules must be observed – chief among them that you should do your hotfooted dash across coals, rather than attempting to sprint through a bonfire. A drunk in Wigan England was evidently not a details man.

Drunk at a bonfire with a number of underage companions, the 24-year-old was said to have given in to repeated calls for him to do a “fire walk”. Stripping his shoes and socks off he dashed through the bonfire, burning himself badly. Melted bits of plastic trays that had been used by the environmentally-shocking bunch to build the fire along with rubbish were also stuck to the man’s skin.

Police found him when they went to extinguish the fire and later said after sending him to hospital that the stupidity of the man’s actions “beggared belief”. The upside for his youthful companions, presumably, was that there was one pair of sneakers no longer in use up for grabs following the episode.

College Party Crackdown: UK gets serious about freshman drinking

We can't speak for the US, where drinking laws are such that when you're finally legal you have a hairline receding more than a North Atlantic tide, but in Canada and the UK, you're able to drink, drive and vote all under the age of 20 (perhaps even in the same day if you have lots of errands to run)

In the UK, "freshers", ("frosh" in Canada, "freshmen" in the US) such as the girl seen here, taking a much needed study break, have been known to dull the rigors of those stressful first two weeks of class registration and receipt of more than three course syllabuses, by tilting the wrist. Now, the UK government is threatening a freshman orientation crackdown worse than when your Visa's declined at the corner bar and you've donned a hairnet and helped with the dishes.

According to a Sunday Times report, however, hypocrisy abounds as Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, as a drunk teen (hencforce known for his dry wit), purportedly set fire to a greenhouse full of award-winning (?) cacti and PM Gordon Brown, while in student government fought against a proposal to cut student grants because recipients were spending too much money on hooch.

At Durham College, one social group called the "The Diced Carrot Club", (not a gathering celebrating the Vegan lifestyle and comcomitant hairy legs), is reputed to encourage members to drink until they are sick, not surprising really when you consider how prevalent boozing culture is across the pond and how during your formative years you need to get up speed--- it's the UK afterall, which gave us 'Bog Snorkeling', (whose genesis can only be explained as a result of the drink) as well as sports that take place in a pub rather than on a field.

A liver specialist at Newcastle U, confided to the PM over ginseng tea that "Students are being positively encouraged to go out and get blind drunk", which is the order of the day on this side of the Atlantic as spring break is rapidly upon us.

For our UK readers, 'Spring Break' is the time when NAFTA trade restrictions are violated by an influx of cheap women across the Mexican border, looking to bathe in tequila and take advantage of the lax drinking laws before returning to their studies.

According to a Downing Street responsible drinking advocate (read: buzzkill) "Many young people are away from home for the first time and are impressionable."

Chuck E Cheese Off: No booze, cursing or gang colors at kiddie's restaurant

Long before Ratatouille came out and made the thought of rodents in the kitchen anything less than disgusting and a sure sign that the proprietor needs to have the lights dimmed and a board of health sign hung in the window, the rat-themed Chuck E. Cheese was welcoming in children of all ages (though single men over 40 going there would be met with a raised eyebrow) to munch down on unwholesome food and run their parents to the poorhouse requesting quarters to play their endless supply of arcade games.

Those of us who grew up on the Canadian side of the Canadian-US border will recall with varying levels of fondness being trundled over to the place on a special occasion -- like the first time a "D" didn't stain a report card -- for meals. Indeed, in the 1980s, after mom and pop Canuck had finished making their contribution to the bankrupting of their country by cross-border shopping and filling up on cheap USA gas and smokes, they would often share their savings bounty with the kids by taking them to a Chuck E. Cheese where someone in a giant rodent costume (a whiff inside one of those would likely turn you off the pizza) would jump around.

To the best of the authors' combined memories, aggressiveness and violence were not part of the Chuck E. Cheese experience -- unless some fat kid was getting lippy near the skee ball.

Times, however, have changed. A Flint Michigan Chuck E. Cheese outlet recently went to what would seem the extreme lengths of banning alcohol, profanity and gang symbols after a near-riot broke out there. The report said that the fracas involved anywhere from between "20 to 80" people. That they couldn't have narrowed down that figure somewhat does indeed point to something being not right in the house of Chuck E.

Officials later said that the incident was sparked by three teenage girls and did not involve alcohol nor gang activity as far as they knew, though surely their must have been the odd curse word uttered that would have required hands being cupped over the ears of every attendee at little Nancy's first communion party.

Drunk teen and his massive bar tab! He's got it 'made in Japan'

Getting a fake ID from that guy who will, once you've drunk yourself stupid in various lenient bars, supply you with a bogus highschool diploma, is a common rite of passage for many young keeners.

More often than not these sorts of identification cards could not pass muster anywhere other than the All-blind and Half-smart Society's annual barbecue and booze-up, but the teens, long having exhausted the liquor cabinet of mom's secret stash of Baby Duck (for all our foreign readers, the worst plonk in the Great White North, unfit to scour sink basins in the southwestern part of France), go for it anyhow.

In Japan recently, a 16-year-old raised the bar (and nearly bankrupted one) for under-aged drunken antics the world over when he sauntered into a Tokyo hostess club in the guise of a rich young playboy and began whooping it up in grand style.

The teen, who the manager later said ordered drinks and spoke with hostesses as a man experienced in such matters would, and was presumably not asked for identification because of that (the minimum drinking age in Japan is 20, and rumoured to be lower if you're not a fussy drinker), sat down with the hostesses and over the course of the evening managed to order an astonishing 60 glasses of whiskey, beer and cocktails, along with two bottles of Dom Perignon Champagne.

A lover of the high life, the youngster had apparently not read the chapter in the con-man's handbook that says when you are in the midst of a deception, it is best to blend in with the crowd and not draw attention to yourself. It's unlikely that he could have made himself more conspicious given his heavy bar tab --- 370,000 yen (US$3,490) by night's end (!) -- and the fact that he repeatedly picked up the microphone to serenade the various karaoke lovelies with some jukebox faves.

Alas, all good things must come to an end (and how much better could they get than a night of high-end booze-up on the arm in some den of ill repute?) and end they did when the teen was presented with the bill. Rather than creating a distraction by, say, requesting some Kenny Chesney and then making a break for it, the teen stuck around until the bill arrived and once it did he announced that he had no money.

Staff kept him there until police arrived, and we, find it a bit disconcerting that the coolest person we can think of at this moment is a 16-year-old kid.(Full story here)

Reindeer Games!

Every year around this time, as we celebrate the birth of Santa Claus (or was it that little blond elf who partnered up with Rudolph in the movie… hmm… too much egg nog), there are always reports of people getting drunk and taking their yuletide frustrations out on the most glaring and garish targets within their blurry sights – the holiday decorations that festoon towns.

Sometimes, these acts are as blasphemous as replacing a nativity Jesus with “Stewie” from "The Family Guy", while in other cases the vandalism takes the form of vigilante justice, such as when someone kicks out blinding holiday floodlights strong enough to have seen action during Pink Floyd’s "Another Brick in The Wall" tour. (It is also quite tempting to throw a rock on behalf of Al Gore whenever one comes across a holiday display sucking up the wattage like that in the above pic).

In Sunderland, England, city officials put up an illuminated decorative reindeer (pictured here) outside of the “Jolly Sailor” pub, possibly in an attempt to detract attention from what we’d expect, given the pub’s name, to be the themed uniforms of its staff members and accompanying motif. Within days of the reindeer’s debut on city streets, teen ruffians were already hopping up on it for a good old small town laugh – the deer having about the same entertainment possibilities as an exercise bike. (Editor’s note: No joy can ever be derived from riding an exercise bike, with the exception of neural misfiring that sometimes results in seizures or more commonly, a runner's high).

The weight of subsequent rapscallions eventually caused the legs of the £2,000 deer to buckle. A tip led to the apprehension of one 19-year-old (yes, we were talking upper-year teens here) who admitted being drunk at the time of his festive "ride" and was let off with a police caution.

Electric reindeer, warned a stern city councilor who had no candy for hooligans, are not to be trifled with and could electrocute an errant sitter. This, along with accidentally hanging yourself while stringing up your Christmas lights (that you won’t be taking down until February at the earliest, death or not), would be a contender for the most inglorious holiday death of all. Given that it looks as if it's constructed from glass it could also, according to the first doctor we reached after a random flip in the phone book (we won't say which phone book), give you a right sore arse.

Beer cheaper than water – And that's a bad thing?

The UK’s Daily Mail, fast becoming The Shark Guys newspaper of choice in terms of rich source material, recently ran a lengthy double-byline investigative piece (full story here) into the rising trend of supermarkets selling their own brands of beer for less than their bottled water. This came hot on the high-heels of an earlier exposé into another alcoholic scourge: those midriff and visible panty-line revealing Facebook girls gone wild, (a story we covered here).

The Daily Mail reports that supermarket chains Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda are selling their own brands of beer at 22p (US$0.46) a can, which is less per litre than it costs to buy the stores’ mineral water and cola, and, in what would seem to be pure hyperbole given the alcohol content of the beer is between 2 and 3 percent, “cheap enough to allow someone to get drunk for just £1” (more on how they sent a reporter out in order to prove that claim later).

Competition between the three supermarket chains led to the low price, with the stores taking on up to an 8p per can loss just to keep up with one another. All three chains now offer the cheapest beer on their rosters for 50p a litre, while mineral water costs between 56p and 92p a litre depending on the store. (The latter price is of course the real scandal, but we'll leave the great bottled-water debate [your wallet and good ole' mother earth are better off with the tap] to blogs such as this one).

Many readers, especially those from Ontario, Canada where a government monopoly necessitates a drive out to the hinterlands for beer restocking, will see all silver-lining and no cloud when it comes to having such easily accessible and cheap booze at the ready. The Mail, however, did not write this one as a feel-good piece, but rather took the occasion to sound several alarm bells.

The main concern was that the youth would put down their alcopops and rush for the cheap lager, which, we presume, is typically the purview of your older recreational drunk. One public health advocate whose comments were included by the Mail in an attempt to strengthen this point came out with an interesting bit of armchair teenage psychology when he ventured that teens would "think that if it's so cheap, it must be OK". The reported low to which Finland has sunk (who knew!) following a 40% cut in its alcohol taxes was also thrown in for extra points.

The Mail even went to the trouble of sending out one of its reporters to drink the cheap beer and report back on its effects in an accompanying piece entitled"How I - a twenty-something woman - got drunk on £1 worth of the 22p lager" (that story here). The reporter, a 27-year-old woman who stands 5 feet tall (and is not as wide as she is tall), might have seemed an odd choice for this test, but here were some selected observations from her afternoon on Asda's own-brand three percent lager (on which she spent £1 hence the headline):

"The first taste is disgusting - a mouthful of gassy, foul-tasting liquid. I don't drink lager often, but even I can tell this is scraping the barrel. The first can is hard to drink but I don't notice too much of a change in myself."

Later, she's loosened up a bit but appears somewhat self-conscious...

"Two cans down and I realise that I am wittering, getting more talkative and, I fear, slightly boring."

Ah, the glorious third can, now things are rocking:

"Into the third can I start feeling more affectionate and my inhibitions are lowered - swinging my legs over my chair, I find myself telling the photographer what a fabulous chap he is and how much I love working with him."

However, those who would be thanking their lucky stars for this, the cheapest of cheap dates, might be put off by the likes of the following:

"The gassiness is getting to me and I keep emitting rather unladylike burps."

And it all goes to pot on the last can and a half:

"On my fourth can, I am getting a bit aggressive - pointing at the photographer as I make another "fascinating" comment and swearing more than I ever would in polite company. By the last half, I have definitely had enough. My voice is heavy and slurred, my limbs feel floppy, my eyes have gone droopy and I have lost the ability to concentrate on anything for longer than a couple of minutes. Worryingly, the lager tastes OK, even nice, and I feel as though I could carry on drinking it if asked."

And, with that, comes a moral to the story of the type that is slightly subtler than a jackhammer in the ear:

"I am a 27-year-old woman and, although only 5ft, am used to drinking alcohol and can deal with the changes it causes. But take each of the physical and emotional side-effects that I felt - and imagine the effect they would have on a teenager."

The Shark Guys

South Africa Safari: Hey teacher, leave us kids alone!

When preparing The Shark Book, we took great care to ensure that every continent was represented except for Antarctica (although we now have our eyes on a few climate-change researchers who know how to party for the sequel). Yes, we traversed great distances via keyboard tapping and mouse clicks to bring together a collection of drunks with a truly international flavor (much like Ibiza, one would assume).

Our book featured soccer referees getting wildly drunk and directing traffic on a busy Jerusalem street, a shit-faced German who offered his friend’s identification to arresting DUI officers, forgetting one key detail—his friend had a glass eye—a tough sell to even the dimmest of cops, and a Maltese man so blotto on cheap whiskey that his flight had to be diverted because he would not be stilled in his quest to break into the cockpit so that he could tell the captain he "loved him".

We may be accused of a lot of things (libel, extremely poor taste, bad judgment, and offering our accusers hush money) but ignoring Africa isn’t one of them and like Bono, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to put the oft-ignored continent under the glaring lights of our Shark Guys roadside spot check—but unlike Bono, we’ve done it solely out of blatant self-interest and in a bid to further gas up our airplane-hangar-sized egos (read with sarcasm heavier than a fat camp welcome wagon).

We chronicled a drinking contest in Tanzania, in which a man washed down a liter (two pints) of pure vodka with a couple of beers en route to "victory" (his nickname was "Shame", which you can interpret as you may) and now, the continent is represented again by a couple of high school teachers in South Africa who made the news recently when they were arrested for being drunk on the job. (Note: This might not shock the odd reader who may, in retrospect, recall the odd whiff of something other than a Fisherman's Friend lozenge emanating from the homework-checking teacher of his or her own school days)

A police official said the school had long had a problem with the students showing up looking as if they had completed their essays on Dylan Thomas by living out one of the end stages of the man's life, but that "now it's teachers themselves that get drunk at school". The policeman then went on to ask "What is this world coming to?”

We would refer him to the "Halls of drunker learning" chapter of The Shark Book, chronicling boozing antics on both sides of the chalkboard divide, for the answer to this excellent question. [full story here]

Drunk mom picks up DUI son: That's NOT Alright, Mama

The following story proves that a maternal bond...er... can’t always be... posted.

Allow us to explain.

A precocious young’un in Hilltown, Pennsylvania, precocious not because he could solve cubic polynomials in his head or compose didactic sonnets but because he drove drunk at a middle-aged level-- was nabbed by cops engaging in the type of driving that would even cause road rage on the bumper car circuit.

The cops, sensing that the 16-year old had recently gotten his swerve on, administered a breathalyzer to the toasted young helmsman in the wee hours of the morning. Registering top marks on the device, the fuzz contacted the ruffian’s mom to come and pick up the blasted DUI valedictorian.

His mom, who we’ll call ‘stupid’ here to protect her identity, herself engaging in the ‘how the hell else am I supposed to get there, walk?’ school of drunk driving, failed the field sobriety tests at the police station upon arrival. Mama was promptly arrested on DUI charges as well.

“If she had admitted to us in the beginning she was drinking, we would have made other arrangements to get the (teen) home,” noted the police chief, who probably sprung for a cab just in case pops would've happened by for the blotto trifecta.

Call 911! DWI is really 'Dialing while intoxicated'

Before he began to resemble a manatee carrying twins, a lean Marlon Brando once remarked ‘What you got’ when asked ‘What are you rebelling against?’

Later in his career, when he began rebelling against dynamism and a high fiber diet (he famously bared his fat arse to 100 extras between takes during the filming of the Godfather's wedding scene, causing more than one cast member to upchuck into their tiramisu), he literally became a larger than life icon.

Still, he's remembered more for delivering lines that became catchphrases than being unable to refuse an offer of an all-you can-eat buffet.

An Atlanta teen, exhibiting some Brando-esque bellicoseness of his own, mouthed off at cops with a ballsy ‘Yeah, what of it?’ when asked if he’d been drinking---an admirable retort if it were not the the end result of having drunk dialed 911. (a parting shot worthy of a free copy of The Shark Book too, incidentally, if its authors weren't the stingiest of buggers). The teen had been arguing with his dad about, appropriately enough, underage drinking when the old man threatened to call the cops on his pie-eyed scion. The son interrupted, saying he’d do it himself. He was promptly arrested. (full story here).

As a second public service announcement, (don't say we didn't already warn you about the perils of drunk dialing) it's best to leave such ripostes to the imagination of Elmore Leonard.