Friday, February 04, 2005
Great Parrotheads In History - Vol II
Famed Parrothead Winston Churchill, when asked by reporters why he was leaving work early.
Today, we continue this insightful series by exploring one of the 20th Century's most remarkable Parrotheads - Sir Winston Churchill. Sure, he helped save the world from Nazism and Fascism, yadda yadda yadda, but the Crime Dog knows what you really want to know. How would he have been at a tailgate party?
Winston Churchill (1874-1965) had an appetite for hooch without equal among great men in history. He used tor drive his staff nuts, sitting up drinking and talking till all hours. Biographer Robert Sherwood wrote:
"Churchill was getting full steam up along about ten o’clock in the evening;
often after his harassed staff had struggled to bed about 2:00 or 3:00
a.m., they would be routed out. Churchill’s consumption of alcohol continued
at quite regular intervals through most of his waking hours without visible
effect. He was really Olympian in his capacity."
Try and tell me Churchill wouldn't have been the last man standing at any Parrothead shindig. It was even said once by C.P. Snow of the hard drinking, cigar chomping Prime Minister that "Churchill was no alcoholic, for no alcoholic could drink that much."
But what could you expect from a statesman credited with great Parrothead jabs like:
"A joke is a very serious thing."
"He has all the virtues I dislike, and none of the vices I admire,"
"I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals."
"I have taken more from alcohol, then alcohol has taken from me."
And of course, who could forget the most famous of Churchill-attributed quotes, from a conversation with a woman who accused him of being drunk: "Indeed, madam. And you're ugly. But tomorrow, I shall be sober!"
So, don't forget at your next pre-concert tailgate party to tip your glass to that great role model of Parrotheadism, Sir Winston Churchill. You know he'd be there if he weren't.....well.....dead.
Cheerio!
