Zambia World Wide

But there’s another reason for this endless introduction and here’s the link: even in suburban Cardonald, there were pubs on every corner & every other shopfront; and, in my Glasgow of the 1950’s, sufficient thirsty artisans, labourers and feckless males around to keep them throbbing profitably. Not exactly like Livingstone 1965, I confess, but excessive alcohol consumption was certainly a common denominator.

Especially on a Friday, my return from school after 4pm usually involved picking my way through comatose drunks lying prone on the pavement, tip-toeing around fresh pools of vomit and taking the role of thrilled observer, as two (or more) grown men beat the snot out of each other, high on drink and low in intelligence.

So I grew up with a healthy disrespect for drinking and wary of its attendant impact on sensible behaviour, even though I frequently tested the boundaries of that philosophy with episodes of my own erratic conduct.

Not that I didn’t understand why so much consumption of Lion or Castle lager, Castle Pilsner and Scottish wine took place in Livingstone, in fairness, mostly after hours. A month in the place more or less exhausted all possible social opportunities and my two month milestone was fast approaching. I was bored and frequent dips into unsobriety didn’t make me less so.

Generally, Jews, even we lapsed ones, are more abstemious than Gentiles anyway. Partly, this is because the dietary laws associated with the religion demand that each and every food & drink item on the orthodox menu has been prayed over by an appropriate jobsworth, then labelled to prove that the process has been undertaken. In truth, it’s a bit of an income-generating racket, but, then again, isn’t all religious ritual? At least this one is business, not personal.

Palwin Bin # 7 is the brand of alleged ‘wine’ which accompanies the feasting and fasting that goes on prior to the major festival of Passover and, in my family circle at least, it was the only permitted alcoholic beverage. My first taste of this so-called treat was an encouragement to lifelong sobriety, reminiscent, as it was, of unwashed feet and burnt entrails. My guess is that many others of the faith decided there and then to embrace a teetotal life forever. Actually on reflection, it might well have been another cunning ploy by my mother, in pursuit of maintaining my liver purity.

Whatever, spending every evening in the tropics propping up a bar in the Livingstone Club, surrounded by steamed expatriates, was not my idea of a stimulating leisure activity, hence my boredom. Now I can hear the enquiry forming in my readers’ head i.e. ‘what happened to the life of unalloyed licentiousness that was breathlessly predicted at the end of the previous episode on the arrival of Bronzed Browning, The Sex God?'. Good question. What did happen?

The answer is both sad and simple. Since his arrival and using his penis as a sort of quivering divining rod, he had spent every spare minute (mostly successfully) pursuing anything in possession of a duo of X chromosomes and a vagina, which, in Livingstone, usually meant women of the married variety. And, since they were often in ossified relationships that had placed them in an abandoned, subordinate position to rugby, carousing with other males or wandering, heavily armed, through the nearby bush in pursuit of hastening the end of various hapless species of wildlife, his strike rate was almost as high as the availability of willing partners in adultery. Until the occasion, that is, when the chief of local police, a role that had not yet been Zambianised, strode confidently into the Club, 6-chamber Webley on his hip and not at all pleased to see Browning’s tongue conducting an intimate examination of the cop's frustrated missus’ tonsils.