I'm never drinking again... at least until lunch time...

So, Tuesday evening was another BT-funded drunk fest for Marj. I'm not sure I'll ever learn no to indulge when the booze is free, even though I spent all of Wednesday chundering. Luckily my manager was very understanding and didn't take the weewee out of me too much. He actually told me never to grow up and get sensible about such matters, so now I'm really looking forward to the Change Management Xmas party!

Anyhoo, the Metro today had an interesting little tidbit about Edgar Allan Poe that is alcohol related so I thought I'd do a little trawl for alcohol-related trivia for you. Enjoy!

Edgar Allan Poe
According to accounts at the time, the father of American Gothic literature was found in a tavern in a state of delirium on October 3rd, 1849, wearing clothes that were not his own. He was taken to a nearby hospital, where he died four days later aged 40 and was buried in an unmarked grave. On the night before his death, he apparently repeatedly called out the name Reynolds. Opinion at the time was that Poe had died an alcoholic. (From The Metro today)

From http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/index.html

As Magellan prepared to sail around the world in 1519, he spent more on Sherry than on weapons.

The U.S. Marines’ first recruiting station was in a bar.

Frederick the Great of Prussia tried to ban the consumption of coffee and demanded that the populace drink alcohol instead.

The national anthem of the US, the "Star-Spangled Banner," was written to the tune of a drinking song.

A raisin dropped into a glass of champagne will repeatedly bounce up and down between the top and the bottom of the glass. (You think this would work with Cava as well? Must try it.)

The corkscrew was invented in 1860.

The purpose of the indentation at the bottom of a wine bottle is to strengthen the structure of the bottle.

Methyphobia is fear of alcohol.

In ancient Babylon, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead (fermented honey beverage) he could drink for a month after the wedding. Because their calendar was lunar or moon-based, this period of free mead was called the "honey month," or what we now call the "honeymoon." (So it has nothing whatsoever to do with the groom seeing the bride's bum for the first time!)

In old England, a whistle was baked into the rim or handle of ceramic cups used by pub patrons. When they wanted a refill, they used the whistle to get service. So when people went drinking, they would "wet their whistle."

"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" is commonly believed to be the only English sentence devised to include all the letters of the alphabet. However, typesetters have another such sentence: "Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs." (F'narr f'narr!!)

There is a cloud of alcohol in outer space with enough alcohol to make four trillion-trillion drinks. It's free for the taking. . . but it's 10,000 light years away from Earth.

Wine has about the same number of calories as an equal amount of grape juice. (Whoopeee!)

Beer and Bras. British men have been found twice as likely to know the price of their beer as their partner's bra size. A poll reported in Britain's Prima magazine found that 77% of males knew how much their beer costs but only 38% knew the correct size of their mate's bra. (I was a 36F last time I checked, if anyone's interested...)

The average number of grapes it takes to make a bottle of wine is 600.

Adolf Hitler was one of the world's best known teetotalers or abstainers from alcohol; his adversary, Sir Winston Churchill, was one of the world's best known heavy drinkers.