Don't Drink To Drive – Drive To Drink!

First published in The Skinny, August 1, 2009

Motoring is thirty work and some people, known colloquially as ‘bloody idiots’, have been known to combine both driving and drinking with tragic results, but here’s the thing - careful organization of one’s holiday schedule can result in long and happy lunches washed down with gallons of guilt-free libations.

For a start, don’t put your hand up for the morning drive shift as, come midday, you will be sitting at a table with a holiday partner who has nothing but hour upon hour of bone-rottingly dull countryside before them and who is thus not likely to let you loose on the local firewater while they maintain a Buddhist-like temperance.

But on no account volunteer for the pm stretch, as this will not only condemn you to eight hours of clear-headed sobriety but also an afternoon of dealing with the obnoxious drunk in the passenger seat who took advantage of both your kind nature and Un Bistrot’s small but effective wine list.

Doing all your driving at night is an option that would leave both of you free for lunch if you weren’t both sleeping off a long night’s drive but as the foliage, and the proprietor of Un Bistrot, are not at their best at 3 am, this solution is not thought to deliver the most efficient of vacation outcomes.

This leaves three options – stay home and look out of the window (although that choice is now somewhat moot), join the ranks of the bloody idiots and never get home at all or buy a property, move in and holiday away for the rest of your naturals – Un Bistrot is apparently available.