Days Without Alcohol - 0.
It's over. I have drunk alcohol. The old, funny me is back! I lasted 100 days and about 22 hours. When I get home I will be able to tell you who got closest to that (I lost all the emails in the apparently pointless erase and install, but had printed all the guesses off beforehand). I wasn't planning to drink and hadn't really felt like it today, but decided that if I didn't do it now then I might never do it and it seems a shame to be in Italy, on holiday and not make the most of all the wonderful things on offer. And I didn't get drunk or go crazy. I just had half a bottle of nice wine. I have had 375 ml of wine in the 100 days of 2008. That's 3.75ml a day on average. Which sounds surprisingly high to me. But I might just try and drink a tiny cup full of wine every day from now on - get the taste, but not the waist. It was strange to be drinking again, but certainly not an unpleasant sensation, though part of me felt a bit disappointed that I had lost the chance to do the full year. But increasingly I am feeling with my whole diet that I need to be at the point where I can manage it without having to exclude anything. I am hoping that I will manage to moderate my intake and am still considering stopping again once I am home, but it would be nice to have the option for an occasional glass of win rather than have to miss out completely. We will see. Mainly I am concerned that I don't slowly put back on all the weight that I have lost and have to consign my clothes back to the wardrobe until the next time I stop drinking or get some serious illness.
So it's over, but I hope it's not completely over. I might have a cheeky beer in some Sicilian piazza tomorrow afternoon and maybe a Campari and Soda as a night cap. But it would be a shame if I got blasted and started smashing this beautiful city to pieces - though I wouldn't mind having a crack at that virgin statue. I'd give it something to cry about!
So overall my 100 days has been a very good thing and I feel a lot healthier and more balanced for my abstinence. And I am hopeful that I won't just flip back to the person I was before Christmas 2007. I could become that most despised of figures - the moderate drinker. I am turning into Andrew Collings. If I stop eating wheat as well then please shoot me.
I have hired a car to get me round the island. Driving here is an interesting experience. Not only do I have to get used to a new car, with features that I don't understand and a steering wheel on the wrong side, but I also have to cope with the Sicilian attitude to driving, which is faintly anarchic. Ironically this probably helps me out, because unfamiliarity with the specific rules of the road here (where do I give way, do pedestrians have right of way at a crossing? etc) and a return of the fluster that descends upon me when I am out of my driving safety zone (as with having to film YCCYF driving in a manual car after years of driving an automatic) mean that I am actually driving very like a Sicilian anyway. And because everyone barges around in a completely random fashion it actually means that everyone is hyper-vigilant so my more extreme digressions, such as driving on the wrong side of the road (which I've only done once) or my inclination to look the wrong way and give priority to the right at roundabouts (this is massively confusing, though luckily I haven't yet gone the wrong way round on one), are spotted and coped with by because they are the kind of thing that happen all the time here. Add to that the tiny alleyways that I am forced to negotiate on a daily basis that seem to be smaller than the width of my car and it's amazing that I have not got a dent in the vehicle as yet. Though I would say that what with my confusion and nervousness and the locals brazen disregard for basic road sense some kind of prang is almost inevitable. Luckily I am insured for this and would advise you to pay for that extra if you ever rent a car on this crazy island.
My only saving grace has been that my sat nav has European maps on it, so I have not had to worry about actual navigation. But today, after an afternoon on a local beach I got back to the car to find that technology had continued to conspire against me and the thing had conked out. This has happened before and it generally requires me to push a pin into the reset button, but I had no pin with me. Unperturbed I attempted to drive to the local town of Noto for a coffee and some ice cream and it was easy enough to get there, but once in the place itself I couldn't work out where the centre of town was, or indeed where I would be able to park and ended up, almost comically having to find my way down the thinnest, most ancient looking road, with the most extreme hair pin bends in it, knowing that I was entirely lost and might never make it back to Syracuse again. Fortunately after much stress and sweating I got out of this labyrinthian maze without being eaten by a Minotaur, but also decided to leave the town behind unvisited. But the need for a toilet stop had me visiting another uncharted town, parking at the first opportunity and then trudging the streets looking for a bar with a bagno (that's bathroom to you). I thought that there were cafes on every corner in Sicily, but not in Avola where I had accidentally found myself. With there being the massive danger of an embarrassing public spectacle I finally found a tiny bar before any street pissing and certain arrest was necessary. Today had been supposed to be a relaxing day, but it had turned out to be pretty stressful. It took me a while to find the way back to my hotel once I was in Syracuse, but finally I worked out where I was meant to be going, with the car still incredibly in one piece. And I got the sat nav working again once I was back in my room and didn't need it. I hate technology. My mac is still as bad as ever (hence me saving this in little chunks, which I hope hasn't confused anyone!). Perhaps it is trying to tell me I should be holidaying, not writing! I think I might try and re-write yesterday's entry as my next New Statesman piece - when I am home. Otherwise it will remain the lost classic Warming Up that no-one ever got to see.
I also got the first draft of my new Edinburgh poster through - let me know what you think. I like it. And have attached an advert for all the Lyric gigs - Book early to avoid disappointment, Londoners and to ensure that these nights continue into the future. The line ups are, if I do say so myself, pretty incredible. Big names, plus brilliant acts that you might not have heard of before.
