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Katie’s ‘dry spell’ reveals rather more about British booze culture than she’d imagined

This week I have not been drinking – booze that is. It’s been six days, four hours and 20 minutes since I last consumed alcohol – but hey, who’s counting?

Actually, jokes aside, I have surprised myself with how much of a nonissue my non-drinking has been. Contrary to my suspicions that I was turning into an alcoholic, this week has assured me I can get on just fine without a glass in my hand. Much to my relief I’ve discovered that I’m equally as inclined to sing at inappropriate times, giggle to myself, shed my clothes on the dance floor and fall into bed with the nearest blonde teenager whether I’m drinking or not.

But in the same week that I confirmed I wasn’t an alcoholic, I unintentionally discovered something else - everyone else is. Because while I’ve been clubbing, bed hopping and binge shopping with all my usual zeal, the one thing that has consistently threatened to flatten my bubbly free week is the constant chorus I’ve heard wherever I’ve gone: ‘why aren’t you drinking?’

‘Why aren’t you drinking’ has droned through my week like a bad smell. And it’s not going away. Some say it with shock, others with awe. Some people have whispered it (as if the answer will reveal a guilty secret), while others have snarled it, forcing a glass of unwanted wine on me. But everyone, EVERYONE, has said it.

“The first rule of ‘Grown-up Drinking Club’ is you MUST keep drinking”

My not drinking, it seems, is more of a problem for everyone else than it is for me. Because over six days of non-drinking I have fielded close to 40 enquiries as to the reason why. ‘When did we turn into an alcohol obsessed culture?’ I found myself wondering (very Carrie Bradshaw) as I brushed off the umpteenth barman with another excuse.

Ironically it was never like this when I was a teenager. Back then it was easy – you were either draining a bottle of White Lightning at the top of the skateboard ramps, or you were sitting home with your parents. There was ‘not drinking’ and there was ‘getting wasted off your face’. But apparently, from your 20s onwards, everything changes. Binge drinking becomes casual drinking. Going out becomes a quiet night in. And three bottles of Babycham becomes a pint
after work.

It’s a grown-up world of moderated drinking where one will never be enough and four will always be too many. And it’s a world to which I never knew the rules, until I realised I’d broken them. Because the first rule of ‘Grown-up Drinking Club’ is that you MUST keep drinking.

grown-up drinking clubs no one likes a non-drinker because if you are not drinking you are drawing attention to the fact that everyone else feels the need to. The teetotaler is a show-off, parading their selfconfidence and ability to relax naturally in the face of everybody else.

People hear “I’m just not drinking” as an insult, a direct snub to their inability to say no. The only viable reasons for being teetotal, in the adult world of the moderate drinker, are to be a recovering alcoholic or a first pregnancy, because then at least you’re not doing it out of choice. Nope. If I learnt one thing this week it’s that no one likes a non-drinker. So, as the week comes to a close and I’m about to jump off the wagon, frankly, it comes as something of a relief. I’m not looking forward to my first G’n’T half as much as I’m looking forward to not having to discuss my drinking with anyone else.

But if my dry patch has taught me anything, it’s that giving up booze isn’t just a matter of kicking the bottle. The hardest part of all is convincing anyone around you to accept it.

Sometimes shocking, but always funny, the self confessed grumpy old woman Jenny Eclair returns to Crawley with her new tour. After all, she explains to John Clarke, she has to pay for a pension somehow.

Jenny Eclair is musing on the deep sense of hurt you feel when a favourite item of clothing lets you down. “Isn’t it awful when your best dress turns against you and you can’t zip it up? That’s a terrible betrayal. You’d forgive girlfriends more easily for sleeping with your husband.”

Forthright, feisty and - above all - killingly funny, this is typical of Jenny. And you’ll be very pleased to hear, there is much more where that came from. For the first time in six years, Jenny is setting off around the country on a solo stand-up tour.

After time spent co-writing and performing in the enormously successful Grumpy Old Women Live tour – to say nothing of writing and starring in her own plays, penning a wellregarded novel (Camberwell Beauty), and hosting a regular Saturday morning radio show on LBC – Jenny can no longer resist the call of the stand-up stage. She is embarking on a major nationwide jaunt, with her felicitously titled Because I Forgot To Get A Pension Tour.

“When it goes well, there is nothing to match the buzz of live comedy,” she beams, unable to suppress a grin at the very thought of returning to her first love. Jenny adds, with characteristic wryness, that “obviously I won’t be standing up all the time - I’ll need to sit down now and again to stop my ankles swelling.”

Jenny, who became the first solo woman ever to win the coveted Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Festival in 1995, is coming soon to a theatre near you. She urges you to laugh and clap very loudly, “because I’m a bit deaf and my hormones are all over the place.”

The comedian, a huge favourite with audiences who lap up such winning selfdeprecation, is offering lots of material about “being the mad side of forty, the odd joke about front bottoms and a bit of swearing.” As a bonus, Jenny also promises to wear a shiny new jacket from the sale at Selfridges, “down from £199 to £49.99 – what a bargain!”

“If Amy Winehouse had a northern mother, she wouldn’t be getting up to all these terrible things. She’d be sitting quietly at home eating meat and potato pies with her elbows off the dinner-table”

Jenny, now a vivacious 47-year-old mother of an 18-year-old daughter, goes on to be more specific about the subjects she will be covering in her hotly anticipated new show. As well as a lustful tribute to the actor James McAvoy, the stand-up is going stomp through, “a big diatribe about the rom-com. I despise the mawkishness and the emotional manipulation and the contrivance of those films,” she fumes. “All those overheard phone conversations and unlikely coincidences. And as for the infuriating taglines - ‘it’ll make you laugh, it’ll make you cry.’ No, it’ll make you puke!”
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Andrew Kay travels to a remote spot near Piddinghoe to catch upwith besoke tailors to the stars Gresham Blake and his wife Fal

I first met Gresham Blake and Fal six years ago. It was early days at Latest Homes magazine and I was asked to interview up-and-coming young business people. Gresham, recently graduated, was working from home, a small three story terracced house in Brighton’s Hanover. They had no business premises, no retail outlet and already he was making suits for an impressive number of clients. The Gresham Blake look was soon established, a return to the sharp cut suits of yesterday, fine tailoring, exquisite detail and a quirky, sometimes bizarre twist. He had the knack of marrying fabulous fabrics to traditionally styled suits. The effect was amazing, truly British, a quality that he upholds as being key to his look, but at the same time adventurous.

Pretty soon, he had found city centre premises and the list of clients grew. Business men and women with a desire for something unique started to clamour for his clothes alonside a huge list of celebrities from the world of music, film and theatre. To this day, the client list reads like the gossip page of a celeb magazine and there is no sign of their empire abating, on the contrary it continues to expand.

For some time you lived ‘above the shop’ in Bond Street, when did you decide to move out of Brighton?

Gresham: When Bond Street became too squashed and noisy, about two years ago. It was so noisy that we cut a foam panel that fitted the window but it was like a padded cell.

‘‘We had Heather Mills in, she was doing the whole celeb thing, you know, baseball cap and dark glasses, and I really didn’t recognise her. But in the end she turned out to be really lovely, very easy to work with”

Fal: It did help economically when we were setting up the business but you could never get away from work. Two years was enough of that.

Where did you move?

F: We rented in Partridge Green, a barn conversion, and we fell in love with it but it was just that bit too far away. We had been to the Isle of Skye and stayed in a barn there and fell in love with barns.

G: We found this one for sale on the internet, it was only third property that we had seen as we were only prepared to look at ones that were not in chains. We walked in and saw the height of the space and the layout and we simply fell in love with it.

It’s far more isolated, very diferent from living in town.

G: Yes it is, but it is very easy to get in and out of Brighton and the traffic is never really bad along the coast road, I can do it there and back in 35 minutes.

Do you find that you work more from home?

G: Yes I do, Ideas don’t come to me 9-5 so I will often find myself working late at night.

F: He does a lot of the design work at home as he doesn’t get as distracted as he can in the shop.

When I first interviewed you both you were operating from home.The business has now grown massively.

F: Yes, the business this year has turned over £1,200,000 and it is still growing.
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It’s not all exams and last minute revision for Roedeanians, but that helps

After only four weeks back at school, Roedeanians seem to have already packed an enormous amount in to the first term.

A trip to the Houses of Parliament; a Bertold Brecht play and Stephen Berkoff on stage. There’s been three careers lectures and a fireworks presentation (in their own theatre) with invited local junior schools, the celebration of International Peace Day and the European Day of Languages. Not forgetting plenty of netball and hockey matches, play rehearsals, choirs and orchestra practices… and classes of course. They seem to take it all in their stride and still have a spring in their step. Roedeanians apply the same enthusiasm, flair and gusto to acquiring knowledge as having tremendous fun.

Roedean ended the previous academic year on a high. The Independent Schools Inspectorate reported in May that: “Pupils (at Roedean) are fully supported by highly committed academic and pastoral staff who strongly contribute to (their) outstanding spiritual, moral, social and cultural development by ensuring (they) enjoy a wealth of experiences.”

“Within this community pupils develop an excellent understanding of their own and other cultures. (Their) social development is excellent and social skills are highly developed.”

It is undoubtedly the excellent relationship between staff and pupils that makes Roedean the exceptional school that it is. The trust of the teaching staff at Roedean is no doubt the greatest enabler for the girls. A prime example was the prank played by Year 13 students on their last day of school. It is a tradition for Sixth Formers to mark their final day at Roedean.

“What about results? This summer Roedean was once again the top girls’ school in Sussex in the examination tables”

This year the school was transformed into Hogwarts overnight. Staff arrived in the morning to a changed school sign and had to make their way through secret passageway portrait holes with the option of a snooze at Fred and George’s swamp. The smiles on the teachers’ faces mirrored the younger pupils’ in the corridors. Carolyn Shaw, Headmistress said at the time: “There could have been no better way of demonstrating their generosity of spirit and their unerring sense of what is right than the transformation of the school. Whatever their A Level or degree results turn out to be it is these qualities which will bring them success in the world beyond the school gates.”

What about results? This summer Roedean was once again the top girls’ school in Sussex in the examination league tables.