Write on fizz

Famously, Laurie Lee, one of the nation’s most beloved novelists, wrote ‘on wine’.  Whether or not he was ever drunk in charge of a typewriter is unclear but one has to entertain the possibility that, as a poet, he typed without due care and attention.  He did his writing in the Greek Islands, presumably because in the days before bargain booze, affordable New World wines or even Blue Nun, this was the only way he could become sufficiently inebriated to welcome the Muse should she come to visit.  Also, proximity to Mt Parnassus may have helped.

Rock stars smoke, inject, inhale and presumably occasionally insert for inspiration.  Writers drink.  Christ alone knows why, as excessive booze normally leads to feelings of alienation from the world and a profound sense of being under-appreciated and misunderstood, all of which is achievable through the simple act of publishing a slim volume of verse.  Alcohol also inhibits early morning creativity, and certain writers famously were at their creative peak at first light.  Presumably this meant they could post the latest chapter of their novel off to their publishers at eleven in the morning on their way to the pub.

However, in the spirit of enquiry G&P is embarking on a five-part special to explore the effects of various types of alcohol on writing, beyond those of not being able to remember that fantastic idea for a novel you had last night (something about a boy wizard?) just before you passed out, or not being able to decipher the notes scrawled on a beermat that could be a poem, or somebody’s e mail address.

We continue with…fizz.

I am writing this drinking a glass of cold, white fizz.  Let us be clear from the start that fizz has a place in writing, both in the formulation of the art and in its enjoyment.  This is also true of other arts, whilst theatre may only be enjoyed by the judicious use of gin during the interval (I don’t make the rules) any visit to an art gallery is enhanced by wandering around with a glass of something, making sure you drink it before it gets warm.  My favourite place for doing this is the RA in their Summer Exhibition, so much so that if I picture, well, a picture, I can feel the sensation of the bobbles and sparkles from the glass alighting on my wrist.

Fizz comes in many forms, not simply that directed into the face of an unsuspecting Formula 1 podium hostess like sparking French bukake.  It has a part to play in literature certainly, one need only think of the scene in ‘John MacNab’ when the gentlemen poachers underline the serious of their task by swearing off ‘the Widow’ until the poaching is done.

But what does the writer who drinks fizz write?  Well, it may depend on the fizz in question.

Champagne probably indicates a high-end sex and shopping novel of such thickness that even if dropped in the pool on holiday, no noticeable swelling occurs.

Prosecco and Cava?  Chick lit.  Funny if it’s Prosecco, not quite so good if it’s Cava.

Finally, anything that fizzes because it’s had something done to it chemically?  Self publishers.  And yes, I do include anyone that sells their vampire novellas on Kindle.

But mainly, we’re talking romance.  Because until Rohypnol came along, no drug was so associated with seduction as fizz.  And if the perfect place to enjoy a romantic novel is indeed in the bath surrounded by scented candles with a glass of something cold and sparkling, rather than on a crowded bus with 90% organic condensation running down the windows and pigeon-shit flavoured rain thrashing down outside, then surely it must put fizz in the prose if there’s fizz in the author.

Life, for sure, goes better with bubbles, in the bath and in the glass.

It adds a touch of class too.  You are unlikely to see two women fighting after a few too many glasses of fizz.  Crying in mascara destroying style whilst assuring one another that all men are bastards yes, but hostile to a sister?  Never.  Champagne is there to celebrate the end of hostilities, not start them (unless it’s a toast at a wedding, boom boom!).

Fizz is romance in a glass.  If we overheard the object of our affections describe us to a friend as ‘the champagne of lovers’, we would simultaneously think how wonderful, sophisticated and complex we are, possibly spoiling the effect by bellowing ‘fucking get in!’ at the news.  To be described as ‘the Pernod of boyfriends’ may leave one puzzled and Googling.  The connotations are all good.  Very few moments of tragedy or heartbreak are associated with bubbles, unless the Bubbles in question is the professional name of a clown wanted by Yewtree, or the ones in your IV.

Fizz, then, is the drink of love.  We order it when we wish to impress, when we are celebrating, when there’s a free bar.

To drink fizz when writing is to have the bubbles percolate the prose, to make it light as air, so that even though the only bubbles that feature in the first paragraph of the first page are those created by the raindrops on the grey puddles on the pavement walked by Cilla Oddshaw, the plain Jane PA who is shortly to turn the life of successful-but-in-need-of-fixing Clive Bigkock around, we know that by the end of the novel, or indeed by page fifteen if Cilla makes her appetite for innovative filth clear to Clive early on, there will be champagne corks popping, and, later, a wedding.

Fizz, you see, is frolicsome fun for fillies.  Wildly sexist?  OK, picture a chick lit author.  Pull back from the head and shoulders shot.  Is she holding a pint of stout?  No, thought not.

Norfolk notes - drink

Hydration is important. Normally in England in October one can rely on the elements to try and hydrate you as often as possible, whether you want it or not. But as a family that cannot function without constant supplies of tea, this was the holiday where the thermos flask, and flask tea in particular, came into it's own.

Flask tea is a very particular brew. You can make up your tea however you choose, brew in a pot and decant to a flask, adding the milk on site later separately, or add the milk to the flask and save yourself the hassle. Or just take boiling water in the flask and take the tea bags and the milk separately. It doesn't matter, because once anything from a flask enters a cup; that cup contains flask tea. It's like alchemy, with tea.

The taste is unique. I could describe it as being the result of the thermos flask needing to be sealed and hence depriving the tea of oxygen, or being the result of some sort of in-flask brewing or fermenting process, but the reality is that it's probably the result of not washing out the thermos flask as often or as thoroughly as one should. What makes flask tea taste like flask tea is probably the ghost of soup. That, the tannins and quite a few molecules of metal from the interior of the flask.

It also tastes different because it's served outdoors. Those cowboy movies where they all sit round a camp fire that has a pot of coffee brewing on it, that's flask tea. It's the taste of freedom, of independence and, most of all, tea.

Tea's poor relation, coffee, also got a look in. Oddly, we'd walk on the beach and then have some tea to give us the energy to go somewhere for a coffee. While tea is drunk out of a flask, coffee is taken in pubs or bars or coffee shops because it's hard to reproduce a really good latte from a flask and a cuppachino is impossible because the chocolate sprinkles melt in transit. Having a posh (bought) coffee was not just a treat, it washed the taste of the damn flask tea out of our mouths.

Because I was driving the wagon, I was on it as well and so was denied my normal lunchtime tipple of six pints of whatever has the most interesting decoration on the pump handle. This did not stop others developing a taste for a lunchtime glass of champagne as a reasonable option to a latte. Champagne served by the glass is the sign of a civilised society. It's the perfect lunchtime alternative to coffee in that it is refreshing after a morning's walk, but it won't keep you awake all afternoon.

It also means it's somewhat difficult to make the transition back to work following the holiday. As one stares at a paper cup full of, probably quite decent, coffee, one cannot help feeling a little short changed that it's not a flute of a bubbling beverage that one can describe as 'biscuity'.