Thursday December 6 - Blast From The Past

My name's Will and I'm a social alcoholic. It's been 11 months, five days and 21 hours since my last drink.

25 DAYS AND THREE HOURS TIL BLAST OFF!

These December days seem to be flying by - which is great if you're looking forward to drinking alcohol again on December 31 but not so great if you're launching a brand new all-speech radio station on January 28.

I did think that this final stretch of my booze-free journey could possibly send me a little bit loopy. Like the prisoner-of-war who, after months of planning the perfect escape, makes a suicidal dash when he gets to within 50 feet of the barbed wire perimeter fence. Or the nightclub lothario who bides his time all night and then lunges for the fat lass at five to two.

But so far, the opposite has been true. December has brought with it a zen-like calm. I feel so delighted to be within spitting distance of the finish post that I don't even care about having to stay sober.

My first real drinking pang - and it was only a minor one - came today. My old pal Gary Quinn was up in Liverpool, as he is joining City Talk in January. We used to work together at Mercury Press, which was my first proper job after leaving uni. If there was ever a golden period in my long and illustrious drinking career, it was around that time. Yes, I drank loads as a student - who doesn't? - but alcohol tastes so much sweeter when it follows a week of hard graft. Seeing GQ reminded me of long hazy nights in the Cross Keys or the Jacaranda. Not just weekends, mind you, but school nights as well. Drowning that day's traumatic events (and there were plenty of those at Mercury) and then rolling in for some more the following day with bleary eyes and Guinness breath. Ah, happy days.

Picking our way through the rain-soaked late-night Christmas shoppers, it would have felt just right to have dived into a city centre boozer with Gary to carry on where we left off in around 2003. But we didn't. Cos I don't drink and he had to go and check out some suitable accommodation for him and his pregnant wife then catch a
late train back to a grown-up job in London.

Toute ca change, Rodders. Toute ca change.