Days Without Alcohol - 100. But how could I celebrate? I couldn't have a drink, otherwise I would have broken the run. I suppose I could have had a drink at midnight, but then in the UK it would actually have been 11pm so I would have failed due to what scientists call "the Dave Gorman effect" (read the Googlewhack Adventure to find out why - it comes down to his advantage). I suppose I could have had a drink at 1am, but due to walking around all day looking at ruins and eating a ludicrously huge pizza which probably had more cheese on it than I have eaten all year, I was asleep by then. Will I have a drink tomorrow? I really don't know. I really, really wanted to drink tonight, but maybe only because I knew I couldn't. It seems like an awfully big deal after all this time and the truth is that I had a very enjoyable night without wine or beer tonight. But my resolve is certainly slipping!
Syracuse is an interesting and pretty place (and the birthplace of Archimedes! Eureka!) and had fun looking at the old Cathedral (incorporating columns from the Temple of Athena), the archaeological park and the catacombs (crazy Christians burying people in holes in the wall). I was less impressed by the ugly and gigantic modern Cathedral, built around a statue of the Virgin Mary that apparently produced tears for a week back in the 1950s. It is quite amazing to see grown-ups bowing in homage to a statue, when surely common sense dictates that this was an accident or more likely some kind of trick. But then maybe the Virgin Mary likes to use her magical powers to make inanimate objects weep for a short period of time. Anyway, the Cathedral, designed, I believe to resemble a giant teardrop, is an edifice to ugliness as well as stupidity. Much more moving in a religious sense was the crypt beneath another old Cathedral (where the catacombs were) which had been one of the gathering places of the first European Christians and has a 1st century altar at which it is likely that St Paul preached. Now if I was a Christian that would be the kind of thing that got my juices going, not a lachrymose statue. Indeed my historian and ex-Christian heart jumped a little in any case when I realised St Paul had probably been in the little grotto in which I was standing. He probably has more influence on the spread and the philosophy of Christianity, even than Jesus himself. He is certainly responsible for the misogyny of the religion and there shouldn't be a man alive who doesn't thank him for that! He kept bitches in their place, whereas Jesus, the sandal-wearing hippie, clearly thought they should have equality or something. Thank goodness that sense prevailed. All women are good for is crying and preferably in statue form. That's what I and St Paul think and so I was pleased to have been in the same room that he had breathed his hateful words.
The most fun I had today though was watching a couple at the next table at breakfast. They were probably a little bit older than me and from their studied silence and frostiness towards one another had clearly been together for a while - familiarity breeds contempt, always remember this. They barely spoke to each other and when they did it was little more than a grunt. The man popped outside for a smoke. There was a fire door right behind their table, which closed behind him. Five minutes later he had finished his cigarette and his face appeared hopefully at the window. It was time for his wife to let him in. But even though she was no more than two steps away and could almost have reached over from her seat, she shrugged and sighed and indicated that he should go round the building and come in another door. Not surprisingly he was somewhat aggrieved by this suggestion, but who knows what slight had occurred earlier for him to deserve this treatment and he vociferously gestured for her to stop being so stupid and to let him in. She was indeed being ludicrously petty and after a couple of minutes made a big show of getting out of her seat and pushing the door for him. He entered and by now was too cross to thank her for this gesture and they sat in fuming silence for the rest of the meal. They were being more childish than the adults who worship a piece of stone which once had some moisture on it.
This was funny for me as a casual observer, but when one considers that they have to spend all their time in this battle of wills, scoring points off one another, it is actually mildly tragic. You only seem to see two types of couple on holiday, either those who have just got together or just been married who are ridiculously happy and demonstrative about their affection, or those who have been together for too long, have nothing left to say and can only derive any pleasure from tormenting their companion who is both their gaoler and their prisoner. The new couples never seem to look at the old and see a frightening vision of their inevitable future and the old couple never seen to look at the new and remember that they once felt this way about their partner, which might rekindle some lost emotion and warm their heart (or more likely break it). Ultimately love is doomed and yet we all carry on despite the mountains of historical evidence ahead of us. You have to admire this triumph of hope over experience.
I had written a lot more on this subject and I have to say that it was pure gold dust, but unbelievably my computer is still playing up and it just crashed and I lost most of it. I may attempt to recreate the entry later, but you know, I am on holiday and don't have the time to waste doing this. I am going to waste it on a beach instead. Apple sucks. Hopefully someone at Apple might read this and decide that they don't want this bad publicity and offer to come and sort out my computer for me, but until then I can only tell you that my Mac is equally as shit as the PC I had before.
