Sunday May 13 - A Wet Dry Weekend

My name's Will and I'm a social alcoholic. It's been four months, 12 days and 16 hours since my last drink.

This was the sort of weekend that booze was invented for. Sadly, my abstemiousness leaves me feeling empty and dissatisfied.

I used to hate the 'boom and bust' cycle of the social alcoholic - constantly recovering from one session or building myself up to the next. Now I miss those peaks and troughs of physical and emotional wellbeing. Because without them life is just, well, flat.

It all started on Thursday night. The show on Radio City went pretty well. Yes, my tongue turned to sandpaper during the intro and I sounded more nervous than a peachy buttocked schoolboy on his first day at Eton. Yes, my very first caller was a crank who claimed to have lost a foot while out drinking (Genuine quote: "I don't what happened because I was unconscious, but I'm told they had hacksaws"). And, yes, I may have asked an alcoholic caller if she named her son Jack after Jack Daniels.

However, for a first time, it went well and by midnight I was buzzing. I had a thirst that only an ice cold lager and whisky chaser could quench. I would have loved nothing more than to head straight to Concert Square and neck booze until the pounding in my chest reduced to a manageable rate. I wasn't asking for the resting heart rate of an Olympian cross-country skier. Even a middle-aged man flicking through Freeman's catalogue underwear section would have sufficed. Anything other than novice clubber about to become latest victim of deadly dance drug Ecstasy.

Alas, all I could do to come down from my showbiz-induced high was drive home via a ridiculously circuitous route then eat Hula Hoops and watch crappy cable TV until my body was satisfied that my 15 minutes of fame had come to an end.

By Friday night I was utterly knackered but keen to discuss the strong and weak points of my performance with my Liverpool-based mates. They had all promised to listen to the show, and even to call in if it sounded like I had failed to prompt any genuine callers. The thought of them gathered around the wireless, like some kind of disfunctional family from the 1930s, had given me strength while I sat in that lonely tower high above the city.

How very naive.

Not one of them listened. They went to the pub instead.

Gary, to his credit, did try to Sky Plus it. It didn't work.

Instead, on both Friday and Saturday nights, they expected me to give a blow-by-blow account of the show. A private broadcast, if you like, for people too grand to listen to the radio with Joe Public.

Not that I minded. It's nice to be the centre of attention. But on both nights, as I told the various anecdotes, I couldn't help but feel that such nights are best accompanied by booze. As my throat got sorer, and the rain outside grew heavier, it seemed like the perfect time for a proper booze up. For endless pints, and fancy dinner plans replaced by apologetic phone calls and bags of peanuts, and complicated round systems which mean you are forced to stay in the pub until closing.

When you feel like that, a fresh orange juice and soda water doesn't cut it. I went home early both nights (Coffee House on Friday, Penny Lane Wine Bar on Saturday) and have spent the entire weekend in a fug of mild depression.

I guess all I can do is chalk it down as a glum weekend, pick my chin up, and carry on.

Next weekend will be very different. Gary, Gregg and I are off to Spain to play golf at a fancy resort. I will then be the designated driver as we head to Puerto Banus to mingle with the jet set. I imagine it will be many things, but dull is not one of them.

Wish me luck.

PS. Watched Brokeback Mountain yesterday, which is basically a film about self-denial and an intense, aching, yearning for something you tell yourself you can't have. I know how they feel.

PPS. Just to make it clear, I'm yearning for booze. Not for some rootin' tootin' cowboy lovin.