Calculations to help you get the most out of your drinking.

So I currently live alone in a city where I know very few people at all, and even fewer who like to go out for a drink (I know, they're weird). So when I do go out at night, it's almost always on my own. This time is often spent talking to strangers in bars or something (it's a variation of the "single serving friends" idea that comes from Fight Club), but the actual leaving of my home with the intent of finding a house of beverages to spend the evening therein, as well as all planning towards this end, is undertaken by myself and myself only. This has subsequently lead to my realising of the immense calculations that are often required before embarking upon such a venture.

The problem, as always, is the cost of a night of thoughtless inebriation. Obviously here I could be talking about a number aspects of cost - socially, mentally, physically, retardedly - but today I mean it in a strictly financial way. Booze costs bucks (side note - are Hong Kong dollars also allowed to be referred to as "bucks"? Am I now qualified to use this term? Someone please tell me). Go to any decent bar in Hong Kong and a pint will usually cost around the equivalent of a fiver (curse you falling exchange rate!). So of course, here more than anywhere, it is much more financially settling to get suitably drunk at home before venturing to your local pit of darkness and dredgery. Herein lies the first problem - planning must be done in advance to ensure suitable fluids can be found within your home. No-one likes to have to go through the ordeal of putting pants on just to go on a beer run, only to return home for the half an hour it takes to get through a six-pack before repeating the process so that the actual venturing out for the commencement of the evenings activities can begin - it's just too much effort. So such treats must be procured in advance which of course means that the engagement of the act of planning must be performed some time in advance. The reason I need to complain about this minor irritance is that it takes away the one benefit I have of not having anyone to go out with in the first place. When you're making all the decisions by yourself, the advantage is that you don't have to plan anything ever. You are free to be as spontaneous as you want and being able to just sit up at the end of the second episode of friends on a Wednesday evening and decide to go on a pub crawl without having to send out a hundred texts to people and determine whether they're free/want to go/still like you after the events of Tuesday's pub crawl and then decide a time and a place to meet and all that other rubbish is just very nice sometimes. Having to then realise that you have nothing in the house and your options are to venture down to the shops and buy booze or be willing to spend vast amounts of money on enough drinks to make it all worthwhile kills this somewhat. Unless you are already prepared, then the logistics of such an impromptu idea will kill it somewhat - and being prepared for such a thing means it is no longer impromptu. This is the paradox of spontaneity.

However, these are very minor complaints that obviously never really stand in the way for very long, but they serve as a suitable introduction to my main observation.

Imagine the scenario: It's Wednesday night. Friends has just finished. You decide you want to go out to various bars to watch bands and laugh at old men chatting up hookers. You have a suitable amount of alcoholic substances in your fridge/cupboard. The settings are perfect. You can begin drinking while at home, before venturing out in to the Hong Kong night, safe in the knowledge that you now can not possibly ingest enough alcohol to use up the last of your money.

How much can you drink before you don't want to go out any more?

Yes, this is what I've been building up to. How many drinks does it take before leaving your home to find somewhere else where other drinks can be bought in the company of other people and sometimes bands seems like a bad idea? I've been studying this extensively for some time, and I can confirm that there will always be that point where the option of staying in and drinking alone outweighs the option of not doing. The advantages of the first (comfortable surroundings, your own decision of music/TV programmes/whatever, lack of annoying people, not having to wear pants) will always suddenly seem greater than the advantages of the second (social environment, greater range of drinks, better entertainment, possibilities of ending up in a situation with a previously unknown attractive girl in which you are both not wearing pants*). So you are always faced with the challenge of "how much can I drink to maximise the financial gain brought by drinking what I have at home, while still keeping the desire to go out strong?".

Clearly there is no definitive answer to this. It would be simple if it was just a case of "4 beers and a whisky and you're fine to go", but nothing can ever be that easy. Such things are always subject to a number of variables: what's happened during the day, how long it's been since your last drink, whether or not American Idol's on TV etc. Fortunately due to my dedication to the developing knowledge of the intricacies of drinking I have been working on a mathematical formula for the calculation of this sort of thing.

I hereby formally introduce A formula to represent Nick's theorem of pre-going out drinkability.

X = A - ((T + G + I) / (P/100)) ²

In which X = Total amount of alcohol that can be consumed without causing lack of desire to go out.
A = Amount of alcoholic beverages found within the place of residence.
T = Tiredness of the person and/or creature in question.
G = Goodness of things within the place of residence (ie. TV schedule, Playstation games, really nice crisps etc.).
I = Time since last night out.
P = Proximity of suitable bars to the place of residence.

Here's an example of the simple "PIGTAX" formula at work:

Let us assume that the person in question has had a long day at work and has run somewhere for some reason. On the tiredness scale of 1-14 they are at around 9. They do not own a Playstation, and this evening there is an American Idol marathon on TV. However they do have some very nice crisps. This puts their goodness of things level at around a 4 out of 20 (and that's with some really nice crisps). They were out the day before, giving them an I of 1. There is a bar a mere 5 minutes down the road. The average person can cover around 600 paces in 5 minutes (according to data researched from the university of bullshit statistics) so this is our P.

X = A - ((9 + 4 + 1) / 6)²

X = A - 5.44 (2d.p.)

This demonstrates that the person is capable of drinking 5.44 "nicks" of alcohol. To calculate "nicks" you must know that 1 beer = half a nick, 1 whisky = 0.68 nicks, and 1 Stroh = 1 nick. All other drinks fall somewhere in the middle of this - it's really very simple to calculate.

However, our calculation is not finished. This person only has 6 beers and 3 shots worth of whisky in their home. This gives them an A of 5.04 nicks.

X = 5.04 - 5.44 = -0.4 nicks

From this calculation we can clearly see that the person in question can drink every drop of alcohol within their home without fear of reaching the point in which they no longer want more. If that person wishes to maximise their savings however, they're going to need that extra 2 fifths of a Stroh shot.

Here's a second example. This person has slept in until 3 in the afternoon and spent their time since then lying around eating pop tarts - they have a T of 1. Again, there is nothing on TV that evening, but they do have a Playstation and many games, as well as crisps and more pop tarts - their G is at 11. They live around 9 minutes from the nearest pub - their P is 1080. Their last night out was 4 days ago, giving them an I of 4. In their house they have 2 beers and the equivalent of 2 shots of whisky - an A of 2.36 nicks.

X = A - ((T + G + I) / (P/100)) ²

X = 2.36 - ((1 + 11 + 4) / (1080 / 100))²

X = 2.36 - (16 / 10.8)²

X = 2.36 - 1.48148148148...²

X = 2.36 - 2.19

X = 0.17 nicks (2d.p)

This person must be careful not to finish one of those drinks, otherwise they may find themselves stranded in their home with no alcohol and no desire to go and get some.

I hope this formula will prove useful to all those who find themselves in this sort of situation. And remember: drink responsibly - or you'll never make it to the pub for more.

*This is obviously always a preferable scenario, but rarely guaranteed without a severe lowering of your standards. Again - it's the logistics of getting to this point that will progressively get less appealing.

St. Patrick's Day

Please note clever use of font colour to make up for limited knowledge of what St. Patrick's day is about (was he an alcoholic Martian/Namek?*).


So as those of you who are from Ireland/aware of the Irish/alcoholics/own a calender will know, yesterday was St. Patrick's day - the number one holiday centred around drinking (closely followed by New Years Eve, Christmas and lonely Valentine's days). True to British form I took this as the perfect excuse to go out drinking on a Tuesday without thinking of the consequences I would be feeling the following morning. Unsurprisingly I am now experiencing those consequences and regretting that decision. Nevertheless, this is the story of an English man celebrating the patron saint of Ireland in Hong Kong.



To tell the truth, I almost didn't go out at all. I got back from work and spent the usual couple of hours lying on the sofa watching TV and eating sandwiches and crisps. Sometimes it's hard to get out of that mood, you really don't want to be bothered doing anything. But, such is my dedication to supporting the economically failing(probably) bar scene, I got up off that sofa, brushed the dorito crumbs off my St. Patrick's day green shirt (or the non-themed green shirt I was actually wearing and had happened to put on through sheer coincidence before learning what day it was) and set off on the lookout for adventure (read: booze). Also American Idol was on. By 11 o'clock I was in Wanchai - one of the major bar areas in Hong Kong.

I knew where I wanted to go first. Delaney's is an Irish pub that's known to just about every westerner who steps foot in Hong Kong. On the top (and for all I know, only) Irish holiday of the year it was sure to be full of many people who spoke my language. The only problem was that I couldn't find the damn place. I walked in 3 huge circles around the entirety of Wanchai before eventually giving up and simply going in to one of the other hundreds of bars there (this may be a little exaggerated). And there was Chinese Elvis. Chinese Elvis was a Chinese man dressed as Elvis (shocking, I know). He seemed to just be sitting in the bar playing his guitar and singing Elvis songs for no reason at all, ignoring the fact that there was already a jukebox playing in there and only the people sitting closest to him could hear him. Fortunately I was one of those people. Unfortunately he couldn't sing. The guy didn't seem to know half the words to any of the songs he was singing, and couldn't pronounce the other half. He had such a thick accent, and the songs were too fast for him to be able to work out how to say - imagine a Chinese man with a heavy accent trying to sing "Jailhouse Rock". Now imagine him trying to sing it while sounding exactly like Elvis Presley. It didn't work. "Jayrehow Wah" just does not sound as good. Still, it was a novelty and fairly amusing for a while. And his dedication to the character was pretty impressive, even if his singing wasn't.

I left that bar after a while to go wandering again, and FINALLY found Delaneys. It was crazy. There were more people spilling out on to the street than there were inside, and there were so many people inside you could barely move. I didn't spend very long in there actually - I don't like places where I have to fight through a crowd so I can wait half an hour to get a beer. Also I had the same conversation with three different groups of people about how great it is to be Irish, why Guiness is "men's beer" and why England suck at Rugby. It surprised me to find out just how many Irish people there actually are in Hong Kong.

After a couple of drinks it was time to move on to the next bar. This one was definitely quieter (I think there were about 4 other groups of people in there) but had a pretty decent jazz band playing. I stayed until the end of the set, but then got bored. Crowds can get annoying, but quiet bars are just dull when you're on your own. The next bar beckoned.

This was one of those bars you always seem to end up going to, even if you're determined to find somewhere new. I've been there a few times, but they have decent bands and just enough people so you don't feel awkward, but not so many that you go thirsty. I stayed in there for the rest of the night out, before feeling the need to leave and collapse on a doorstep somewhere nearby.

That's where the unwritten rule of Tuesday night bar crawls came in to play. Once you've emptied your insides on to some person's doorstep (actually some people's doorstep since everywhere is an apartment block here) it's usually time to go home. One quick cab ride home and I was sound asleep in bed, just a few short hours away from the wonderful feeling that accompanies morning.

And that is my surprisingly long story of a St. Patrick's day night out with myself. 4 bars, 4 and a half hours(ish), several drunken Irishmen, 3 bands, 1 Asian Elvis, many many drinks and 1 disgusting mess that someone else will have had to clean up this morning. All in all, a complete success I feel.

On an unrelated topic, I have just noticed that this blog thing works on American time. Why put the time I'm posting these if it's not going to put the right time? What a ridiculous thing.

*That's a Dragonball Z reference for all those who are just that cool.