Monday July 30 - Boring Boring Batchelor

My name's Will and I'm a social alcoholic. It's been six months, 29 days and 21 hours since my last drink.

My life is too boring to blog, apparently.

This was the brutal - but probably fair - accusation levelled at me over the weekend by a young scamp who once looked up to me. I'll call him Jimmy Bracewell, because that's his name.

I bear Jimmy no ill will, as he was actually offering constructive criticism. This blog, he pointed out, is limited because my life is too stable. I go to work, come home, go to the pub, occasionally go on holiday or for a big weekend, and yearn for alcohol. Sometimes it's hard, sometimes it's easy, but I never really appear to be a man on the edge.

I agree that this blog would be seriously boosted by some massive personal crisis, but I have to draw the line at some of Jimmy's suggestions. I will not be arranging, for example, for "Gemma to go out and shag a Premiership footballer" simply to improve the quality of a blog.

If there was a book deal, on the other hand...

No, it's still not going to happen.

So, all I can do is apologise to readers who feel that this blog lacks emotional depth and raw emotion. And if you find the relentless anecdotes of a happy, sheltered, middle-class boy with no major problems (or none that he wants to share on an open forum) make you want to puke, then I suggest you look away now.

I went to another wedding this weekend. Gemma's university housemate Emma was marrying Dave - one of the lads who lived in the uni house next door.

It was a right fancy do in a place called Hoghton Tower, in Lancashire. The banqueting hall was where King James I of England was so taken with a delicious loin of beef that he knighted it Sir Loin on the spot - hence the expression sirloin steak.

Although Emma is not officially Royal, she's the nearest thing to it that I know. And as befits any Lancashire princess, her dad kindly stumped up for a free bar and ensured the top quality wine and champagne flowed generously throughout the day. (As opposed to a Yorkshire princess, whose father would begrudgingly fork out for a dozen bags of pork scratchings, a barrel of Tetley's and that's yer flaming lot.)

It is a uniquely painful experience to spend an entire day trying to ignore the sound of yet another champagne cork popping, while nursing a glass of half cranberry juice, half sparkling water. (I like to add some fizz to my urinary tract-cleansing berry drinks on special occasions!)

It is even more painful to be the designated driver for three people - Gem, Anna and John - who have all supped liberally of the free booze. Particularly when they their less-than-razor-sharp navigation skills mean the five-mile journey to the hotel takes 45-minutes. (I had hoped never to have to go to Blackburn again after leaving PA, never mind as a taxi driver for three drunken buffoons.)

The rest of the night, however, was great fun despite my sobriety. I even used the same tactic for overcoming my shyness on the dancefloor that I developed at Matt and Cathy's wedding. Ie, sober dancing is only embarrassing if you do it half-heartedly. Do it with conviction, no matter how badly, and it's brilliant fun. That, at least, is my explanation for mincing around to It's Raining Men and allowing myself to be pulled across said dancefoor on an invisible lassoo thrown by the best man.

I also met a man who should be my nemesis - the bloke who appears in several TV ads for the sickly learner's booze, WKD. He's the bloke who strips naked while his flatmate is trying to watch football, and ends up volleying his rolled-up socks and pants at him. He also does another one in which he performs a robotics-style dance using a power drill. Despite advertising a wanker's drink, he turned out to be a nice guy. I was planning to tell him about this blog, and maybe even canvass his opinion. Unfortunately, he was too busy fending off the attentions of one particular guest who kept shouting: "Do the dance! Do the dance! Go on, do the dance for us!"

Just imagine that. I only have to give up booze, and therefore endanger my enjoyment of weddings etc, for a year. He will be politely declining increasingly urgent pleas to "Do the dance!" for the rest of his life. Oh well, serves him right for advertising a wanker's drink.

The wedding was followed by a lavish barbeque at Emma's parents' house on the Sunday. Once again the booze flowed and once again I could only watch with envy as I sipped cranberry juice while everyone else got stuck into yet more champagne. On the plus side, my urinary tract has probably never been cleaner. On the negative, I did try to make up for the lack of booze by making at least four trips to the barbecue and hog roast. So I'll probably get gout instead.

See. Cystitis or gout. Who said my non rock'n'roll life was boring?