The Perils of Alcohol

I was listening to a programme on the radio this morning where the comedian Dave Spikey was relating an incident where he had inadvertently thrown something containing a chemical into a furnace which exploded and in the process set light to his hair.

This story, from this comedian, in such an amusing way made me think back to a very old friend of mine, lets call him “Kev” shall we?  I found my own recollections of a similar incident made me laugh ‘till I cried over my porridge!

I went like this, one day during our time in the Army, and no doubt during of just after one of our nights out and the consumption of several large bottles of Cypriot beer Kev raised the subject of some stage or circus acts he had seen.  These were where some of the acts involved a showman passing needles, apparently painlessly,  through their cheeks and fire eaters “safely” blowing jets of flame from their mouths.  “I can do that” he declared!

Trust me I thought, I don’t think it's safe. But given the amount of beer that we had drunk I was finding Kev’s reasoning (the face is “immune to pain in certain places”) rather compelling and enough to have me agreeing with his assertion that he could “do it”.  Mind you I was not in a month of Sundays going to try doing it myself.

So Kev prepared himself first taking his needle, a cigarette lighter to use for both sterilising the needle and igniting the “fuel” for his fire eating experiment and finally a container of butane gas.(liquid lighter fuel not being readily available)  “are you sure about this” I ventured.  Kev assured me that he was as he no doubt swigged another good slug of Cypriot beer. In all honesty I can’t remember if we had any beer with us or indeed just how drunk we were at the time, if indeed we were even drunk.  But something had possessed us and I was not about to change Kev’s mind. 

The scene was set, Kev was ready though I should add at this stage that he was on a period of leave and had grown the semblance of a beard which was to prove crucial later on.  Taking several deep breaths Kev embarked on the first part of his “act”, the needle passing through the cheek trick. We carefully “sterilised” the needle with the cigarette lighter and then with some confidence Kev started to push the needle into and through his cheek. 

After about three seconds all Kev’s confidence in his belief that there would be no pain was cast to the wind as he wailed loudly with the needle simply piercing the outer part of his face and leaving him in no doubt that this part of the act would have to be abandoned.

Kev  never to be considered a coward or a fool (in public) quickly abandoned this part of his plan and quickly  moved on to stage two of his plan, fire eating.

I suppose fire eating was not the right description for this next feat as it was going to be more like fire blowing.  What we had not taken into account in this “keystone Cops” approach to fire eating or body piercing was that butane was not the best “liquid” to attempt to blow from ones mouth and ignite. No, it was to end all of Kev’s dreams for a life on stage as the soft “whoomp” as he lit the jet of expelled butane. With the “whoomp” Kev’s beard ignited and after a few seconds of frantic beating the singed beard was simply smouldering and giving of the distinctive reek of burning hair.

I cried with laughter then, just as I did when I recalled the story at breakfast.  I trust Kev has not and will not try that trick again?

I must remember to write about his attempts once to trim on his beards with those old fashioned hair clippers barbers used to use.  Now that’s another story, watch this space!