Bing is on again. The opening words are seared onto my consciousness. The high-minded “no TV” rule didn’t last the first lockdown. As my wife and I juggle full-time work and childcare, the TV is a welcome nanny for a while, albeit an irritating one. This afternoon, even Paw Patrol is a relief from “Hello Bing, Hello Pando”.
How I wish I hadn’t agreed to do dry bloody January. It’s only a few days in and already regret it. Yesterday, in the supermarket, I caught myself eying up the non-alcoholic wine. I imagined myself carrying that familiar weight of bottle to the checkout. But to what purpose? Even if it tasted like a 2010 Bordeaux, it wouldn’t hit the spot. That’s the problem with so much professional wine tasting, and all that high minded talk of balance, length and complexity. Wine tasters spit it out. And that seems like a sacrilege to me. Wine isn’t just the taste. It’s a full mind/body experience.
So why do it? And why not bail out? Surely no one would hold it against me given what we are all now going through.
I am not a natural Puritan. I don’t go in for any of that self-hating mortification of the flesh business. Indeed, next week is the first anniversary of Roger Scruton’s death, and I would dearly love to raise a glass of high-end Montrachet to the great man. But over these last months, wine is the one thing that has been denied my congregation at the Eucharist. And I feel some sense of need to share in their privation, albeit in a different kind of way.
The deeper purpose of my dry January, though, is as an exercise in facing the present reality full on, without distractions and analgesics. There is an arrogance somewhere here, I admit that. I want to look this thing in the face without turning away. I guess I want to assert my dominance over it, as one might attempt to do by looking squarely into the eyes of a monster without blinking. In this context, the seven o’clock ritual of bottle opening — ok, six sometimes… yes, five even — feels like some sort of admission of defeat, a retreat into the comforting ether of not knowing.
Scruton hated Puritans, those tortured by the belief that other people, somewhere, are having more fun, and driven by the desire to stop them. His attitude towards wine was reverential and he proposed that virtuous wine drinking expressed a form of convivial togetherness that was a foretaste of the heavenly banquet. Even Islam imagines paradise to be characterised by rivers of flowing wine, he reminds us. “Taken in the right frame of mind, wine shows us the … value of a life in which gift-love has a central place”, concludes Scruton’s effortlessly wise I Drink Therefore I am. Gift-love is a wonderful elision, carrying the idea that a cup of wine contains a merger of the fruits of creation with God’s abundant generosity; like as gift, something to be shared, and responded to with gratitude. From the eucharist to the dining room table, this is the virtue of drinking.
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Subscribei get the impression that the wine isn’t hitting the spot and it makes sense, then, to put a bit of a lid on it. But I hope, Giles, you’re still celebrating Christmas in other ways. January isn’t a time for abstinence and reflection, that’s Lent when it’s easier to do as well. I know Christmas now seems to start in mid October and ends around the 27 December, but for me it starts Christmas Eve and last until Candlemass. So I’m still rejoicing and celebrating, I hope you’re finding other ways of getting through these dark days. That’s what Christmas is for!
I agree wholeheartedly. Veganuary and dry January are wholly inappropriate for a cleric of traditionalist sympathies. Lent is the time for that sort of thing. I have decided to celebrate Christmas until candlemas this year in the old-fashioned manner.
They’re wholly inappropriate for anyone except vegans and teetotallers.
I started drinking to forget. Now, since I have long forgotten what it was I wanted to forget, I just drink because I like the taste.
So it worked!
Dry January, Mr Fraser? You’re a priest! There’s a time in the Christian year for that kind of thing, and it’s called Lent.
If GF announced he was giving up drinking for Lent it wouldn’t bother anybody, Christian or non-Christian: “it’s what they do”. (“It’s what some of them do” would be more accurate, but hey-ho.)
By choosing Dry January (starting just as the Octave of Christmas ends), he is making the same faith/belief point, but has the chance of getting his message through to a few more people.
Bear in mind as well that Lent is longer than January, though, even with the Sundays of Lent off: same kudos, but four more dry days!
The octave of Christmas is not the end of Christmas! What about the traditional 12 days never mind the tradition that the whole period lasts until candlemas.
I suspect that “high-end Montrachet” is tautological. But if you know a source for low-end Montrachet, please advise.
The Swedish alcohol monopoly is the single largest buyer of wine in the world. They leverage their economy of scale into lower prices, especially for high-end wines. You can see their website at www systembolaget se (stick dots in between the words) and search for Montrachet. You may have to tell the site that you are over 20 years old ‘fylled 20 Ã¥r’ before anything will be displayed. I don’t know whether the prices there would count as ‘low-end’ but the might be less than you are used to paying. Of course, you will have to come visit to get any. They don’t deliver overseas.
I might join Giles’ congregation if he starts dishing out the high-end Montrachet during communion.
I like a nice glass of red Wednesday to Sunday, only one mind, (Okay two…maybe three on a weekend…you know?) When young I liked to get legless – very often..too often, didn’t we all? – God alone knows with hindsight how I managed to avoid alcoholism but I did. (Thank’s God) Bar a self-forgivable slip last night in memory of a suddenly taken friend who also liked the odd red I’m going dry this month though I reckon it’ll de me more harm than good. Roll on February fellow virtuous people…. I’ll drink to that!
Thanks Giles. Deep…I too, am attempting a dry January. More for weight than anything else. I drink too much, I know that, it’s not endangering my health but it’s a habit I want to control. Finish work, a little hungry before dinner, a glass of something will relax me and knock off the hunger pangs. Once the first one is downed then the evening won’t taste the same without a few glasses of…something. And with dinner? Of course! So, break the habit, cut out the first glass and, don’t you know, it’s all quite easy – so far! Well, aside from the fact I have discovered that: I’m not that interesting or amusing, I have too few hobbies, I don’t read enough, I’m not as intelligent as I thought I was, I watch too much TV, I don’t know what I want to do with my life and that avoiding stuff doesn’t make it go away.
Aside from that lot…Yeah…
Bring on February and my alcohol Instagram filter.
You’re not alone! Good luck with the weight loss, mine will be longer as it comes with a 2 stone target, but… I allow plonk Friday and Saturday.
‘That’s the problem with so much professional wine tasting, and all that high minded talk of balance, length and complexity. Wine tasters spit it out.’
This is based on a misunderstanding. Obviously, at a professional tasting when one is assessing perhaps hundreds of wines, one spits. (And even then the alcohol seeps in to though the skin/capillaries). At our dinners and private tastings we do not spit, we enjoy the ‘balance, length and complexity’, not to mention the taste and alcoholic effects. Actually, I enjoyed them all rather too much last Saturday and, after a number of high quality champagnes, wines, whiskies, and calvados etc I fell (well, I was pushed0 to the ground while jumping up and down to ‘Borstal Breakout’ by Sham 69. A lot of blood from my nose but nothing broken. Anyway, I’m having a dry week.
I trust you were socially distancing as per the latest Fuhrer Directive:XIV?
I trust you were socially distancing as per the latest Fuhrer Directive:XIV?
I trust you were socially distancing as per the latest Fuhrer Directive:XIV?
In vino veritas. I am not a latin scholar but thought this meant that truth is spoken when vino removes the inhibitions. Akin to ‘many a true word said in jest’ but slurred.
If wine or alcohol is consumed in moderation there is no need for a dry month. And it is never wise to drink alcohol to numb feelings or thoughts. Wait until you have processed those before having a drink if the medication effects of wine are to be useful. When we do something to stop feelings we compromise our health.
As Plato said, (for the second time thanks to rinky dink AI).
“Nothing more excellent or valuable than wine was ever granted by the gods to man. When a man drinks wine at dinner, he begins to be better pleased with himself”.
As Plato said:
“Nothing more excellent or valuable than wine was ever granted by the gods to man. When a man drinks wine at dinner, he begins to be better pleased with himself”.
As Plato said:
“Nothing more excellent or valuable than wine was ever granted by the gods to man. When a man drinks wine at dinner, he begins to be better pleased with himself”.
It runs contrary to the wisdom of our greatest Shakespeare hero:
“There’s never none of these demure boys come to any proof, for thin drink doth so overcool their blood, and making many fish-meals, that they fall into a kind of malegreen-sickness, and then, when they marry, they get wenches.”
Has Giles any barons in his brood?
Perhaps you may end up enjoying the company of your local Alcoholics Anonymous group, Giles. And although I wouldn’t wish the illness of alcoholism on anybody, I would recommend the fellowship and cheerful company of Alcoholics Anonymous to absolutely everybody, who wonders if their drinking is becoming a problem.
Not drinking at all is a great deal easier than drinking only a certain amount, or only on certain occasions. And if not drinking at all fills one with fear then it is time to take a fearless look the drinking and ask the question who is in charge? You, or alcohol?
Alcohol is only another mind and mood altering drug. For me, the moment of truth arrived when I asked myself why I found it so desirable to chemically alter my state of mind. I had no answer. So I stopped doing it, and my life became a great deal easier.
Not surprised that Giles often needs to escape from himself, and also not surprised that he stands in awe of the dastardly duffer Roger Scruton.
Still, I’m prepared to offer my sympathies regarding his drink problem, which sadly is unlikely to be “cured” by a few weeks off the turps.
Me, I drink for pleasure rather than escape (I’m enjoying a pleasant chilled Oz white as we speak, on this warm Tasmanian afternoon) but it’s an occasional indulgence, not a daily medication.
What is the source of your antipathy towards Giles Fraser and Roger Scruton?
It’s a simple clash of ideology and personality. I’m a champion of rational philosophy, science, secular humanism, liberalism etc., whereas Giles sees himself as a holy crusader against such notions, and much the same applies to arch-conservative Scruton.
Although admittedly the latter was worse, often displaying a vicious streak of racism, homophobia and misogyny, so much so that he was even sacked by the Tories for such nastiness.
Colin I think if you applied the principles you say you champion you will find that Scruton lost his role with the Tories based on a social media storm created by a lying left wing activist journalist who later revelled at the dismissal. When the truth later came to light Scruton was reinstated. I write this not as a Scruton fan just as someone who is triggered by lies, nastiness and arrogance. Enjoy this afernoon’s wine.
The trouble is that lies always seem to masquerade as rational philosophy, science, secular humanism, liberalism etc.
I wasn’t aware that he was reinstated, thanks for the correction.
But I was aware that in his homophobic polemics, for example, Scruton advised that we should “instil in our children feelings of revulsion” towards homosexuality, presumably one of the reasons that Giles regards him as “great”.
But Wikipedia tells us: “Scruton told The Guardian in 2010 that he would no longer defend the view that revulsion against homosexuality can be justified.”
Aww, wasn’t that nice of him 🙂
On the other hand, I think we can forgive gays for insisting that revulsion against Gauleiter Scruton will always remain justified.
Gay yourself I take it. Explains everything.
The context in which you use ‘alt-right’, ‘racism’, ‘homophobia’, ‘misogyny’ is now well known, literal meanings are ignored, but conveys a lot about you.
To quote another English embarrassingly pretentious and clueless chattering dastardly duffer, you are “hoist by your own petard”.
For your poetry inclinations-
‘O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An’ foolish notion:’
That power might be Unherd reader’s comments?
So Gordon, you agree with Gauleiter Scruton that it’s important to instil in children feelings of revulsion towards homosexuality?
Eh? what’s this got to do with the price of wine?
I must reply to your question, although I am not Gordon. It´s important to instill in children the knowledge that comes from the laws of Nature. Only men and women are born. The rest in between is confusion of the mind, therefore, cannot be considered as coming from Nature. Children must learn that homosexuals and lesbians are an anomaly, not to be encouraged.
Transgenders only exists because of modern pharmaceutics allow them to bend the natural laws. Without the daily fix of hormones and repressants people revert to Nature.
Let´s just teach our children the sad story of these poor confused people. No hatred of course, just knowledge.
Pretty much in line with the views of Gauleiter Scruton, one of Giles’s heroes.
Alas, Giles received some sort of award from a Tory gay group for his supposed “inclusiveness”, underlining his fundamental fraudulence.
You, at least, are an honest sort of bigot.
Any comments on my assertion about Nature and it´s laws being not followed by the confused people?
About the pharmaceutical dependance of the confused people?
Giles gets an award from a gay group affiliated to a political party which since it’s been in government has legalised gay marriage, and you cite his award as evidence of Giles’s homophobia. Something is very wrong with your logic. Google ‘non sequitur’.
I’ve no idea if Giles is homophobic – I suspect he adopts whatever view seems convenient when addressing this or that audience.
But in this piece he’s lauding the “great” Gauleiter Scruton, who was one of the worst English homophobes of the past generation or so, as even Stonewall would agree.
Homosexuals are 3% to 4% of the population. Trans people are .0003% of the whole. How their sexual decisions or nature dominate so much of public discourse is a puzzlement.
I have serious doubts of your statistic figures, but that is not the main issue here. Just think of this: every movie now ( Hollywood , BBC or Netflix) has an homosexual or lesbian as a main character in the plot. Every media outlet (paper or digital) has a column devoted to the homosexual or lesbian or transgender community.
Do you seriously believe that these global networks would be catering for the 3% of the population if this was the case?
The bottom line is that the “progressive” editors and producers are campaigning in an unprecedented scale to try and sale us the idea that homosexuality and lesbianism are natural human traits.
I think they are not, and to back my statement I can call Mother Nature to the witness booth. Mind you, I do not preach any violence against the confused people engaged in unnatural sex practices. All I am saying is that these practices are not natural, they have departed from the laws of Nature and therefore should not be portraited as safe characters in today´s film industry, nor as “progressive” columnists of the press.
The statistics are not important. The shameless campaiging is.
Sir Roger didn’t think that. Stop misrepresenting him.
From the Wikipedia article on Gauleiter Scruton:
“In an essay, “Sexual morality and the liberal consensus” (1990), Scruton wrote that homosexuality leads to the “de-sanctifying of the human body” because the body of the homosexual’s lover belongs to the same category as his own.[157] He further argued that gay people have no children and consequently no interest in creating a socially stable future. He therefore considered it justified to “instil in our children feelings of revulsion” towards homosexuality,[146] and in 2007 he challenged the idea that gay people should have the right to adopt.[158] Scruton told The Guardian in 2010 that he would no longer defend the view that revulsion against homosexuality can be justified.”
If you believe this is a misrepresentation of your hero, you’re free to edit Wikipedia, but I suspect those who wrote that entry might be more familiar with his scribblings than you appear to be.
You said that Sir Roger believed that “it’s important to instil in children feelings of revulsion towards homosexuality”.
None of your quotes shows that Sir Roger believed this. You are misrepresenting him.
….to expand on my “antipathy”:
Scruton – very much like Giles – had a remarkably detailed prescription for precisely the kind of individual that he regarded as socially acceptable and desirable, compared with all the kinds that he regarded as untermenschen.
I say “very much like Giles”, for that is all that Fraser’s contributions to any kind of debate usually amount to – condemnations of people who are not like Giles, and love poems to all the little Giles’s out there, especially those who defer to his “spiritual authority” as the Giles-in-chief.
Read Scruton’s works and you get a finely honed view of exactly what characteristics he admires in a man, woman, boy or girl, and if those elements aren’t there, they should be rejected from society pretty much entirely. And this was a critter who laughably “deplored” the communists and other totalitarians for their intolerance and anti-individualism.
In truth, Scruton cashed in on an era when being aggressively “conservative” was eccentric enough to be regarded as individualist, when in fact all the doctrines he promoted were stridently collectivist and conformist. Giles, a champion of collectivism and conformism, especially under the yoke of supernaturalist autocracy, is very much his soul-mate.
Please stop quoting verbatim from “How To Be Perfect Liberal” copyright 1970 without attribution. You may be sued for plagiarism.
I too see myself as, if not anything as grandiose as a champion, at least as a servant of rational philosophy. I even have a PhD in it, just like Sir Roger, albeit his was in aesthetics whereas mine was in modality. So quite where you get the idea that Sir Roger rejects rational philosophy, I’m not sure. I’ve read some of his works, in particular Conservatism. From memory, what he rejects is pure rationalism, espousing something close to the Humean dictum that reason is the servant of the passions, although I think that a word better serving the Scrutonian outlook would be ‘values’. To me this sounds right, but I will listen politely to reasoned arguments against Hume’s insight. However I really don’t understand why you should be so angry with Sir Roger for being Humean about the relationship between reason and values.
I’m also very much in favour of science. Moreover, I’m broadly in favour of secular humanism, although
(i) as a conservative, and
(ii) despite my personal atheism,
I defend a continuing role for religion in public life.
I even as a conservative support many aspects of liberalism; I tend to be sympathetic to the classical liberal advocacy of personal freedom, and am as keen as anyone to defend liberalism from the encroachments of wokeness.
As to your accusations of Sir Roger, I presume you are referring to the disgraceful treatment meted out to him at the instigation of George Eaton. I won’t dignify your accusations with an answer, as Sir Roger’s exoneration is a matter of public record. Suffice to say that you have disgraced yourself. This is no way to talk a man who is no longer alive to defend himself, but who as well as being a distinguished philosopher, also at great personal risk distributed samizdat literature behind the Iron Curtain. I can only suggest that you have a long hard think about things.
Resentment/jealousy/bitterness/anger/grudge/self loathing whatever other natural inbred left leaning emotion I missed out? Perhaps he’s just one of those people that can’t abide anyone to have anything that they don’t?
Ha, same to you sweetheart 🙂
As with Quillette, this site was doomed to quickly become just another alt-right ghetto below the line, no matter what material they publish above it.
Is Colin new here?
Anyone who describes Scruton as a ‘dastardly duffer’ is not to be taken seriously. Funnily enough, I am currently reading another of his excellent books on the philosophy and understanding of music. He ranges from the classics and jazz to rap and pop etc. He was, without doubt, one of the most civilised men that Britain ever produced, and was from a working class background, I think. He was only ‘sacked’ by the Tories because those revolting people at the New Statesman stitched him up. Never forget just how nasty the left always has been and always will be.
He was, without doubt, one of the most embarrassingly pretentious and clueless duffers the English have yet produced, and that’s a significant achievement for a nation crawling with such chattering posers.
Well Colin, you are a wonder. Please advise your most wonderful books we can purchase on “rational philosophy, science, secular humanism, liberalism etc” so we can purchase and improve ourselves asap. Q laughter….
I haven’t written such books, not being an essayist or public intellectual, or indeed following the example of Giles or Scruton, a chattering poser, peddler of superstition etc.
I do write a little poetry, but I very much doubt that you’d like it 🙂
please share the poetry
I don’t know if it’s done the same to you, but since I downvoted it the pathetic little creature has gone through all my posts and downvoted all of them! Hilarious – but indicative of a very sad person indeed.
Come on, “Wonderful Colin” – here’s another one!
:.
What the hell is going on at UnHerd?
Why do you keep repeating everything!
Sack that AI Moron and a get a species of African Ape to sort this out, pronto.
Aha, the bliss of holding a glass of U-boat fuel, sitting next to that great roaring fire in the Cradle Mountain Lodge!
An experience not to be missed.