Happy Noo Year (hic)
Well here we are again after an extended Christmas break. It only seems reasonable to take up where I left off, and where I have been all this time. I was in Lancing yesterday (the "town", not the public school) in search of its architectural highlights. There were none, but I did find a copy of the TLS from 28.10.05 on sale at the library for five pence. It contains the following information about Anthony Burgess...
In the sixties Burgess and his wife Lynn would get through a dozen bottles of gin a week, despite hardly ever entertaining. He liked a couple of bottles of wine with his evening meal, pints with double whisky chasers down the pub. If in need of stimulation, he would take three dexedrine tablets, washed down with a pint of G & T. For a pick-me-up, he mixed a cocktail called Hangman's Blood:
"Into a pint beer glass doubles of the following are poured: gin, whisky, rum, port and brandy. A small bottle of stout is added, and the whole topped up with champagne. It enduces a somewhat metaphysical elation, and rarely leaves a hangover."
Burgess died of lung cancer, aged 76, possibly related to his 80 a day cigarette/cigar habit. His wife, Lynn, died aged 47 of cirrhosis.
posted by Paul Jeremy @ Sunday, January 15, 2006
2 Comments:
Papayoudilly, it seems, ushers in the new year with literary anecdotes and preposterous booze recipes. Well done you. I for one am extremely interested in what must be among the most expensive and lethal drinks in Christendom: Hangman's Blood. Will ANY pub serve one of these or does it require a special licence? It's a confection that makes a Long Island Ice Tea look like a bottle of milk, combining spirits, sparkling wines, fortified wines and beer (all the food groups) in a way I can scarcely believe. No hangover? This must work on some arcane principle whereby if you keep mixing drinks sufficiently recklessly they cancel themselves out. Or leave the body so scarred it simply loses feeling. I've obviously never reached the optimum number. Maybe Burgess's research can point the way.
The wikipedia entry for Anthony Burgess contains also contains the Hangman's Blood business, and a quite impressive collection of other trivia.
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