Lucky for him WWII came along to save him from obscurity.
Gotta think Boris Yeltsin could have given gone toe to toe with him. Or maybe shot glass to shot glass.
Churchill–If not for WW 2, I’m not sure we would have known who he was. Clearly a functioning alcoholic. Remarkable communicator and orator and motivator. Remarkably bad at numerous strategic decisions. If Britain and Churchill were in charge of WW 2 decisions, I’m not sure when the war would have ended. And I’ve heard that his whisky and sodas were rather weak.
Seriously? He was already a famous journalist, had run the navy, and became Prime Minister because of who he was, i.e. not some obscure crank nobody knew.
But he was known for always having a certain amount of alcohol in his system. Alcoholic? Who knows. Functioning? Most certainly.
I am dedicating myself to a Winston Churchill Saturday.
I will try to post and see if I could beat Hitler faster.
Aside from the spirits, that’s nearly 4 bottles of champagne a day each for the doc and him; I might manage that for a few days, but not a fortnight!
Plus the spirits!
I tips me lid… (and spills me glass)
GG
Yeah, one day is doable, would be a disaster and leave me bed-ridden on day #2. That as a lifestyle? No way.
I recall watching a show many years ago on a channel like History, where a guy analyzed the importation documents from the Colonial Era, specifically the alcohol importation, and concluded that our Colonials were basically walking around drunk every day!
A Churchill biography has been in my reading queue for about six months. It is now the next book for me to read. I’ve been looking forward to it.
![[snort.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/b/bdc3944606213c4dca6c1169cf0a166c8bc4f8c9.gif "snort.gif"){kind=small}
I’m not a medical man, but the liver is much better at dealing with a lower constant stream of alcohol than a binge, at least in the short term.
I wonder how much one could drink over a whole day and still stay under the legal limit for driving for example…
I am quite certain I could not come anywhere close to that, and wouldn’t want to try.
But if anything could motivate me, a “family vacation” in North Dakota might.
You must be kidding. He was first elected MP in the first decade of the 20th century, I think. He was the First Lord of the Admiralty during WW1 (at that time he was a liberal). He published his first book in the 1890s and frequently wrote books during the first decades of the 20th century to augment his living. His Nobel prize in literature was probably mostly given to him for his history of WWII, which was, of course, written after the war, but still . I’m leaving out a fairly distinguished military career in the 1890s and, after he resigned as First Lord of the Admiralty, in WWI. There’s little doubt that if he had died in 1930 instead of having gone into the wilderness, as they say, he would still have figured in history books.
Alcoholic excess, so attractive. And so good for you!
Yes. Don’t, but could.
My favorite Churchill quote was when he was decribing his decision to return to the Conservative Party after previously leaving it for the Liberal Party…“Any rat can desert a sinking ship. The real trick is to sneak back on.”
He was the one voice in the wilderness in Great Britain during the 30’s that warned about Hitler/Nazism and pushed for Britain’s rearmament…and he was ostracized for these beliefs…look who was right in the end!
Which?
May I suggest Manchester’s multi-volume work. Good writing, lots of information on thousands of peripheral issues, and fascinating subject. I always thought they should do a movie of Churchill - there hasn’t been a good one yet. There was an awful one with Burton if I recall. And they should end it with the quote towards the end of the book where Stalin is at a dinner talking to a woman and probing about the British political scene. It has been over 20 years since I read the book so I don’t remember verbatim, but it’s more or less:
“What about Churchill?” he asks.
“Oh him? He’s washed up,” she replies.
Then just before the credits roll, they could simply list his accomplishments for the next 20 years.
Can I, for a day?
I believe the answer is no, I can not. Or perhaps I choose not. Ten years ago (at 40) yes, no problem. Now, I’ll cry Uncle. The days of shame have passed, I’ll concede.
I think it’s fair to say, this guy had some issues.
George Bernard Shaw and Churchill were great friends, and upon the occasion of the premier of one of Shaw’s plays, he sent two tickets to Churchill with a note saying “Here’s two tickets to opening night of my new play, bring a friend if you’ve got one”
To which Sir Winston responded “I can’t make the first night, here’s the two tickets back, please send two for the second night, if there is one” 
(paraphrased)
Indeed!
And yet… his entire (lengthy) Wiki page mentions the word ‘alcohol’ exactly once. And that is a reference to his front line service in WW1, when he did not get anything…