Nothing succeeds like success
The week's good cause.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I am appealing to you today on behalf of that selfless and dedicated body, the World Center for Hangover Research.
I know that hangover is not one of those illnesses that people like to talk about publicly, but if the Center is to succeed in its noble work then the first step must be to clear awaysome of the myths about hangover.
In the first place, hangover is not infectious. Nor can you pick it up off a barstool seat. For that reason its treatment does not require isolation of the patient. The barbarous practice of refusing to speak to him and making him get his own breakfast, sending the children off to stay with the grandparents.
The sad fact of the matter, my friends, is that there is no known cure for hangover. That of all the illnesses, for the sufferer few inflictions are more incapacitating, debilitating, and downright humiliating.
On opening the eyes the first sensation is an immediate and overwhelming conviction that one's body has been taken over by an alien lifeform.
To the very extremities of one's nerve endings, all one is conscious of is the massive THUD THUD THUD of the kitten walking across the carpet. Downstairs.
Then, trying to dismiss the feeling that one's tongue is wearing a full-length coat, one makes one's way to the bathroom feeling extremely titubant, and one inspects one's face in the mirror.
All right, you say it is all very well harrying us with these awful details, but hope can you offer us? What research is being done to wipe out this distressing and widespread complaint.
Well, my friends, mankind's ONLY hope lies with the Hangover Research Center. Here, a small band of dedicated boozers are laboring ceaselessly and selflessly. Every night from opening time onwards, they fill themselves with booze.
Then, the following morning, gin leaking out of their ears, the temples throbbing like a schoolboy at a Swedish film, they sample every known antidote.
And yet no government subsidy attends them. It is all done by voluntary contributions.
This, despite the fact that if the hangover figures continue their upward spiral it could mean the end of drinking as we know it.
So therefore, my friends, may I appeal to you to give generously to give to this cause. I know you have many other calls upon your resources but DO consider this. There is nothing is the whole world that looks for outside assistance more desperately than an unwell drunk. Or, as the proverb so succinctly abbreviates it, nothing seeks aids like sick souse.
741119
Denis Norden 588b
