Alcohol Abuse

I remember a guy in Liverpool selling "Gin" it was put over as 100% pure alcohol very strong so best drank with bitter lemon.A man and wife had a session on it which killed them leaving a young family behind.It turned out that it was methanol,the guy that was selling it worked in the bus garage and this stuff was used for cleaning the deisel engines of the buses.
Regards.
Jim.B.

Sadly Jim the Greek disco owners have been punching it out for years , I had a three Bloody Mary's one night at a nice bar , the Vodka which I rarely drink was from a Stolinchanaya Russian Imported Vodka Bottle , the next day I had a stinking headache , like a Migraine . I looked around the back of this bar and there were a few two litre bottles marked as Medical Alcohol , the sort used for cleaning equipment . These bar owners pour it down our kid's who then go totally silly because the stuff they are drinking is not drinking spirits . I prefer my drink to come from a sealed bottle , and avoid spirits especially mixed ones when abroad , unless in a hotel that I can trust

I was on a little tanker running alcohol out to Split and back on some sort of EU tax fiddle. Shore guy used to come aboard and take samples from the tanks for analysis before discharge. He would retreat to the mates cabin and if it agreed with his palate we would start discharge or transfer without waiting for the lab results. Unfortunately the mate got a taste for it and I've never seen someone go downhill so fast. Totally incapable of work, hell he couldn't even dress himself. I ended up with all the ships retained sample bottles in my cabin in case he opened the wrong one and tried drinking phenol or one of the other less pleasant aperitifs. I wasn't overjoyed with the chinking of those bottles in heavy weather so was glad to see the back of him and the return to the focsle of the samples.

Regards
Calvin

After reading your post 31 about the guy who made Gin anf the manand wife died after drinking it .
I dont think it will put me off my daily G& T
By theway did you recieve my EM i sent a few days ago
Your doing a great job about the Anniversarys coming up

Christ Capt. Kong nine bottles of vodka a week, serious drinking!
Keith when I got back to London after my last trip which was of all places WCSA, a street photographer took a photo of my friend & I. When I got it I was shocked, still have it too. I was yellow, I swore not to touch a drop for a year in fact did not for almost two as I was at university in London so this was seriously hard to do but I did it. I then began to drink again but only have ever been so stupid once after that it was working in of all places Peru on my first job out of uni, then Jamaica. The rum got me there so swore off again only had the weed. We drink wine with dinner & have one or two at the bar two or three nights a week. Occasionally a beer, love Japanese beer but rarely spirits. Have seen many mining guys as well as old MN mates who the grog got to sadly. Hong Kong is a Monty Python skit for the expats who have lost themselves in a bottle , it is a powerful dragon to control for many. Shocking to hear 16yr old girls in the state Capt. Kong mentions a horror story. Richard

Good afternoon Capn. It was never like that when I lived there! BUT--as a young and foolish teenager, I once went into a watering hole on the Hard at Portsmouth, I think it was either the 'SHIP ANSON', or the 'KING and QUEEN'. Perhaps our mutual friend Mr. Rob Page can confirm for me. Anyway, every Saturday night regular, a local man, a ex R.N. man would go into the bar, and when the place was 'heaving' he would signal to mine host to bring out the galvanized bath tub which would be filled with cold water. This guy would tell all and sundry to place there bets as to whether or not he could drink, in a certain time, a small keg? of ale whilst sitting in the tub of water. On the night that I witnessed the feat, the guy swallowed the lot in about 20 minutes. I learned after, that due to sitting in a bath of cold water, he would actually pee as fast as it was coming in. Many years later I took a mate there to witness the event, but was told that the guy had died of alcohol poisoning.
Just thought some-one may be interested!
Regards,
Colin.

So when they took the bath out to empty was it known as 'taking the pizz'

So when they took the bath out to empty was it known as 'taking the pizz'
.
. They probably poured it back into the barrel. Waste not want not.
Brian.
.
. But Portsmouth has the Highest Death rate from alcohol and Liver diseases in the Country..
Cheers
Brian.

was it zinc poisoning from the tub?:pjp

I live a few miles out of Portsmouth and have never been around the town drinking , it never appealed to me . The local QA Hospital I believe has one of the best Liver Units in the region , I wondered why , Must be they get more practice than the others . The volume of Sailors thirty years ago in the pubs around Old Portsmouth getting stupid on drink was actually nauseating , I was in the Still and west , ten sailors came in ordered ten different sprits , one ordered a pint , he downed the pint then the others put the ten spirits into his pint glass ,then it went down and returned with the rest of his stomach contents . Not a nice scene when you take the wife out for a romantic evening . So I never drank down there much after that . The Ship Anson still exists ,. but an awful lot of local pubs on Portsea Island have shut down