“I’m alright!” are often the famous words quoted by some after falling down stairs, off balconies or out of hotel rooms. I was having a good chat the other day with a friend, and we were discussing the quality humour that is more often than not produced by Hugh Bladen being so blind drunk.
“And that’s a telling tackle!” or words to that effect are often used by Blades.
Anyway in my studies I had a lecturer named Malcolm and he was telling us the story of Hugh Bladen falling out of the commentary box or off his hotel room balcony or something to that effect(I had a copy of FHM a while back where they asked him about this, but I can’t find it now) As you can see, Hugh Bladen obviously survived the fall.
Then we go onto the case at out very own Charlie V’s place in Strusibaai. Struisbaai is right near Cape Agulhas, the Southern most tip of Africa. Anyway, after a drunken night, two of the guys were obviously going for the “I’m-so drunk-you-are-my-best-mate-I-love-you-we-need-to-hug” sort of hug.
In the process they both fell backwards, over the railings and landed neatly onto the grass and also onto the concrete driveway. One of the guys was knocked clean out, but after a little while they were back on their feet with absolutely no problems and no medical attention was needed. A clear cut case where drinking saves lives, because that fall is generally a solid case for turning peoples lights off forever.
There are some issues here though. If you are drunk you are more likely to actually do stupid things like fall off balconies or jump from moving machinery. So if you are drunk you might not get injured because your body is so lame it just turns into rubber and therefore you avoid injuries. However if you were sober you would probably not pull such stupid stunts and so it’s probably safer. Not jumping out a hotel room window sober is a lot safer than jumping out of one drunk.
However some professions are just loaded with danger. Take shipping. Being the captain of a ship is dangerous work and you are bound to hit swells the size of Cher’s daughter(The one with that ridiculous name) So you will fall. That’s why sailors are always drunk(“I’m a drunken sailor!”) because in their line of work the body needs to be supple in order to survive the myriad of falls that will take place sometime or another.
Drunk people just never seem to break things when they fall. Look at cycling and you will see a guy cruising on his bike slowly and he will just topple over, and immediately grab his collarbone because it has broken. A drunk on the other hand would probably fall off the bike and bounce into the gutter because he is so lame.
Drunks also seem to never have to do anything remotely normal. Look at those alcoholics at all the local watering holes such as Firemans Arms and Forres. Those boys have been knocking the barley and hops back for years, eating pub lunches and smoking like Paris Hiltons…and they just never seem to kick the bucket! It’s like they are cockroaches, they just can’t die! If I had to live like them I would give myself a year before I spontaneously combust.
Spontaneous human combustion is basically when people just kind of catch alight. Wikipedia offers us the following on how it may occur:
The wick effect
…thus the standard explanation offered by scientists is as follows(With minor variations):
-The victim dies suddenly (e.g, from a heart attack), or loses consciousness or mobility from excessive drinking.
-A cigarette or some other source of flame ignites the victim’s clothing, which starts to burn, possibly fuelled by the spill of distilled beverages, and kills the victim if he or she is not already dead.
- The wick effect occurs
All that is no doubt quite interesting to you. So that will explain, in the future, why that guy at Forres just catches alight. You know the guy. When you walk into Forres, turn left. Just where all the beer taps are the bar has a bend. There is a guy who always sits there boozing and reading the paper. Like ALL the time. He is a concrete case for spontaneous combustion.
So in this case drinking won’t actually save your life because you probably won’t have a heart attack. Booze also won’t be all over you so you will not be highly flammable.
It’s just strange how some people are healthy their whole lives and then still only crack like 90 years of age. Whereas drinkers punish their bodies constantly and still live to about 50. Which is actually not bad going. It’s like running your petrol car on diesel and it actually works, and still lasts for 12 years.
I think we could find out some interesting things about the human body by doing tests on the regulars at Forres and Firemans Arms and seeing what exactly these boys are made of. Their livers are probably like bricks and their kidneys are some sort of wire mesh filtration system. Their hearts are like stone and their bank balances survive on the goodwill of their pension.
The one thing that is amusing about these drinkers is the heavy incidence of gout. Gout is a buildup of uric acid and basically it resembles itself by swollen ankles and often,hilariously, the big toe. Many an hour can be enjoyed at Cape Towns watering holes as grown men trade gout stories, ones of Voltaren injections and pain so bad that they cry.
It is actually so hectic that even the slightest breeze will cause pain like you have never felt in your life. Nevertheless, these boys continue to subdue the pain with many more drinks and much more food. Too tough to cry, too tough to die! They are easily identified by their kankles (Click for link). Hilarious! If you are lucky they are wearing sandals and you will see a big toe that resembles a frogs expanded neck. These guys also hobble into the bar smoking and shout to the barman:
“Another cane for the pain!”
There are many medical miracles in the world, but the most incredible can be found at pubs anywhere in the world. How some of those guys are still sitting there reading the paper, perving young UCT students and laughing is beyond me and probably even further beyond medical science. Whoever it is that created those human bodies was an engineer. Probably German.
Cape Towns pub crawlers. German engineering where you need it most on a body.
Sean Lloyd
Editor
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