Carlsberg just don’t do hangovers – or do they!

Double Vision with Charlie Adley

Happiness comes in many forms. Sometimes it engulfs you when you meet friends, or fills you with gladness when you look into the eyes of the one you love the most. There’s that empathetic joy which washes over your heart, as you share the happiness of another human being.

Then there’s hangovers, the unbridled delight of watching your children evolve their own personalities and – hang on a mo.

Hangovers?

That’s what I said. Hangovers can make you happy, but you have to plan ahead.

These days I barely drink at all. Apart from an occasional couple of whiskies at home, to steady the nerves while I watch the Chelsea play, I only go out about three or four times a year, heading into Galway to do exactly what the medical experts say you shouldn’t.

As regular colyoomistas will know, these bingey rambles tend to take place at times when the city is at its quietest. I like a seat, or even better a barstool, in a pub that has room to breathe, where I might see a friend or a Howya.

The thought of going out in Galway on a Saturday night generally fills me with dread. Now old enough to be older than their father, I’d feel squashed, ancient and awkward in city centre bars, where acres of young flesh is flashed in ways that this middle aged married man cannot comfortably enjoy.

However when word broke a couple of weeks ago that the Guru was coming up from Cork, myself and Dalooney were irresistibly drawn to drink with him. The Guru I met when we were boys of nine, becoming firm friends in our late teens. Forty odd (very odd) years later we are as brothers, while my excellent friend Dalooney is an integral part of our shared Galway past.

We all lived together in a house in the Claddagh, along with Yoda, The Magician and Artist in Blue Towel, during a strangely wonderful and terrifying time of ghosts, madness and Taylor’s Bar.

By seven o’clock myself and the Guru were full of falafel and perched on barstools at the back door end of the Crane bar. There was no plan, but far West, snug and safe, we knew that in all likelihood we’d stay just where we were.

To read Charlie’s column in full, please see this week’s Galway City Tribune.