I really hate alcohol. It most definitely must be the root of all evil. It destroys your liver, your kidneys, your brain cells and much of your body. It creates marital and social problems. It leads to excessive behaviour, promiscuity and poor judgement. Also to unplanned pregnancies and to so many bad decisions in our lives.

Yet still, somehow I say all this, as I pour myself a lovely glass of red wine. It’s a great little obscure French Vin de Pays de Vaucluse, which I particularly enjoy. And although it is the first glass of the day, it certainly will not be the last.

I managed to finally quit smoking a few years ago, after being a smoker for many many years, knowing full well how harmful it was to me, but drinking I still admittedly haven’t, and probably never will. There are some things in life you simply enjoy too much to even contemplate ever quitting.

I have had much more than my fair share of ridiculous and shameful alcohol induced moments. I could probably write a full length book on these experiences alone. Suffice to say that even as a young lad there were many moments which led to binge drinking which in turn landed me in very awkward situations indeed.

On one occasion many decades ago, and even before I owned my first car, after a huge night of drinking with friends in Sliema, I must have passed out at some time or other. When I woke up at around 7am, I somehow found myself curled up under the bench of the main bus stop in Msida, just across from the police station, in a large pool of vomit, with a gruff constable prodding me in the belly with his boot, while all the bystanders were safely waiting for the bus at a considerable distance, well out of smell’s way. Talk of a massive walk of shame as I crawled up slowly and painfully and ambled slowly away looking worse than the worst of the homeless!!

Coincidentally, another equally unsavoury experience concerning alcohol, vomit and buses has already been recounted here before, under the name of “The Fountain of Youth”.

Then of course there was the time when I was on holiday in Nice, France, with a buddy, living it up until the wee hours of the morning and reporting to the airport just a couple of hours later to catch our flight back to Malta. We were both in such a terrible state, still totally drunk, dirty, unshaved, reeking of alcohol, bright red demonic eyes, and slurring incomprehensibly, that they simply refused us to board. And this was at around 7 in the morning! So we just returned to the hotel, checked in again, slept straight through the day and went out again partying that evening.

Luckily the hotel organised our tickets for the following day and when we checked in it was the same personnel at the airport. So when we arrived in front of the girl, she picked up the phone and called her manager, who also had the pleasure of making our distinguished acquaintance the morning before. He looked at us in pure disdain and disgust and in a strong French accent he said “Hmm, not vehy mootch betteh but we prefeh dat you leave”, so he pushed us through once and for all. I am sure that he was rather reluctant to start his day’s work every morning with us two sorry sods in front of his sore eyes.

But my main anecdote here does not even concern my relationship with alcohol, but a gentleman’s whose name I don’t even know.

When we ran a local catering establishment we were very big in parties and functions and the place was equally used for drinking as it was for eating. On most days we actually had three bars running simultaneously and at times we even had four. So we were naturally surrounded by drinkers and drinking, and all that it brings with it.

Every New Year’s Eve we organised a very big party and were always packed solid. It is pointless to state in which condition many of our clients left our place, usually the last exiting well after 4am. And as may be expected, the later it got, the worse the state of the remaining customers became. The early departing were usually still relatively sober, but then gradually it tended to degenerate pretty quickly.

We always ended up helping people out by supporting them from under their arms. We often slowly and laboriously walked people all the way to their car, whenever possible to the passenger or back seat, as these were luckily not the drivers. Although as may be expected, we have endless rows with customers who we firmly advised not to drive, but who simply would not listen.

One such client spent about half an hour arguing with us, but in the end if they don’t listen there really is not much you can do. So he stupidly and hardheadedly got into his car, started the engine and proceeded to drive literally straight into the first tree, which was only about ten metres away, without ever even swerving or trying to miss it. He must have passed out immediately the moment he started the engine. It was very lucky that he didn’t end up in the sea, as our establishment was just on the water’s edge at the Msida yacht Marina.

And speaking of water, one year at the end of one of these massive New Year’s Eve parties and just when we were finally shutting everywhere down in true zombie manner, all but dead from the endless proceedings, quite a notable incident happened. It involved two people who had just left our premises only minutes before.

She was residing on a small yacht berthed exactly next to our establishment. She was Irish and it goes without saying therefore, that she drank like an entire shoal of fish. She had a bit of a tongue on her too, so I was always a bit wary with her, especially when she drank. Her husband was away on business and their two very young children were (hopefully) sleeping on the boat totally unattended. But we are not here to judge her mothering skills, so let us just ignore this here. She came in rather late, supposedly for one quick drink to celebrate the new year, rather than staying on her boat alone, except for the sleeping children, and ending up having at least twenty. And that is of course, besides craftily seducing this middle aged English gentleman and convincing him to join her for more on her neighbouring boat.

The only problem was that while she was rather drunk, he was just simply paralytic and not even able to walk. I’m not quite sure what sort of performance she was expecting from him on the boat in her husband’s absence…

I cautiously warned her that there was no way he was going to make it along that swaying flimsy passerelle which is so typical of these small private yachts. The boats there were not moored sideways along the quay, but moored either bow or stern to, and could therefore only be boarded by walking the dangerous plank. But you simply don’t argue with a tough, tipsy Irish woman. So she instantly told me to shut it and to mind my own effing business and tugged at the tottering drunkard to follow her to her evil den.

We were closing up the last of the windows upstairs when we heard a large splash. Not the sort of thing you usually hear at 4:45 in the morning. We look out and we see her on her boat, laughing her head off, as the poor sod was gradually sinking into the water, with only his legs above the surface, as they were tangled in some of the ropes. In the few terrifying moments we looked on, not once did his head ever emerge out of the surface.

I had of course also had much more than my fair share of alcohol, but believe me within a split second I was totally stone sober. What instantly flashed in front of my eyes were shocking news headlines the next morning saying ‘Englishman drowns only metres away from the restaurant which fed him far too much alcohol directly leading to his death!” “Who should be held responsible here if not the restaurant owner?”

I suddenly let everything go and raced downstairs and outside to try and save this fast drowning man, followed by several members of my staff. We all took a short cut to get there quicker as ever second counted, and all jumped over a low wall straight onto the marina side. Our head waiter, equally inebriated, caught his foot on the wall and fell down onto his knees, but even this didn’t stop him, as we all raced towards the boat and the witch’s constant cackling laughter.

The only way to try and pull the poor man out was by perching myself dangerously over the side of the passerelle and pulling him up by his clothes. I somehow managed to untangle his feet and pulled up his head out of the water. He was still just about conscious, although very badly coughing and sputtering and spitting, while gasping for air.

I tried in vain to pull him all the way out of the water. He wasn’t a small man and the weight of all his wet clothes and more so my precarious position perched off the side of the passerelle, with no real leverage or much to hold on to, made it impossible. The others could not come directly next to me as there was no space on the passerelle. They were all positioned around me. waiting to haul him up onto terra ferma, once I managed to pull him up far enough. I tried several times which resulted in my losing more and more of my strength, until I came to the one and only sad conclusion there was. The only way I could ever pull him out was to heave so hard that I would definitely end up in the water instead of him.

I again took a quick read of those shocking, incriminating headlines in my mind, which now had only become worse. “Alexander Bonello, owner of the restaurant which got him stone drunk in the first place, makes a weak and failed attempt to save him, gives up and goes home to sleep, while man dies directly due to his negligence!”.

So I told the others to get ready, counted slowly to three, and heaved with all my might, ending up, as expected in the 1st January cold and filthy marina waters, wearing a full New years Eve suit.

I woke up the next morning feeling rather bad. By that evening and after the doctor had been, it had gotten even worse and was eventually diagnosed as bronchitis, which lasted over two weeks. Our head waiter couldn’t walk the next morning, went to hospital and the x-ray clearly showed that he had broken his kneecap, keeping him away from work for over a month. That flash on the way home as the sun was rising on the main road in Attard, was as expected the speed camera, and a I got a nice fat fine to end up the lovely night’s festivities. Naturally my brand new and expensive suit was totally ruined.

When I met the Irish witch again upon my recovery and return to work, she very simply couldn’t remember even the smallest of details of that night’s proceedings. She just laughed that she woke up the next day with an Englishman she didn’t even know soaking wet and lying in her bed. So the bastard somehow got onto her boat anyway in the end. She even went on to scold me for not dissuading him from joining her upon leaving our restaurant, when according to her she was drunk and vulnerable.

But the biggest mystery of all is how Malta wasn’t treated that year, around the middle of January, to the striking headlines “Restaurateur strangles Irish woman so strongly, that the authorities had to have his arms amputated to get them off her throat”.