U.K. Earns Most-Hammered Nation Status

report published by Downing Street’s strategy unit found the whole of Britain utterly plastered last week, surprising government officials who thought the nation only mostly drunk. The study, originally intended to determine public opinion toward new traffic-reduction measures in downtown London, shocked researchers by revealing that the entire British populace, to a man, was too drunk to talk about traffic.

The study found British binge drinking had increased to 100 percent, and added that British children under 16 are drinking twice as much as they did 10 years ago. Some blame the government’s “Our kids: Tomorrow’s drunks, today!� poster campaign for this increase, while others lay the blame on all the kids getting shitfaced everywhere. The study is also thought to have amassed a world-record assemblage of unintelligible British quotes.

“Aye mum, ‘ow ‘bout a pint, ey?� asked six-year-old Roary Willis of Liverpool when confronted with the study’s findings.

The numbers also show that women are drinking more, and falling out of moving cars at a record rate. Asked to comment on increased alcohol consumption among British women, housewife Mary Willis mused “Well, frans maston ralf nay, eh hay!� while filling a spillproof cup with Newcastle.

The study also found increased rates of public singing of fight songs, “dunking,� as defined by throwing chickens into public fountains, and an increased enthusiasm for camping, as defined by sleeping outside.

Not all Britons were pleased with the study’s findings.

“We need to create a more civilized late-night culture! Dear God do we… It should be about cinema, and theater… uh, and bowling,� said British bowling director Rodden Blears, wincing remorsefully as he nursed a cup of black coffee.

“Aye bawlin!� slurred nearby reveler Drew Jaehnig, grabbing his package. “Fock ryte! Boost me liney shaynt chans, ha ha! I’ll go bawlin wit me dyke inna cont’s hat! Ha ha!�

The study found that Britain loses 17 million workdays every year to hangovers, fuck-offs and vomit-related drownings, the equivalent of 46,000 years spent sleeping under a table in the lobby of a strange hotel. The figure represents more than double the nation’s actual recorded workdays.

These findings put Britain out to a comfortable lead as the most-drunk nation, topping perennial drunken powerhouses Sweden, Denmark and Germany, which recently became less drunk thanks to a U.N. intervention.

“Hammel geinen fausteneininin…� giggled German bricklayer Hans Slomein, blowing at a feather stuck in his beard when asked about his nation’s alcohol consumption.

Government officials for the other most-drunk countries can only speculate what effect these findings will have on their now runner-up nations. German and Swedish officials could not be rousted from bed for comment, but officials from Denmark asked the commune to remember last year’s U.N. General Assembly, when Danish representative Lars Faaborg-Andersen pissed himself while holding a hot dog to his crotch, when considering Denmark’s drunken staying power.

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Friends and readers, it's always difficult to confront someone with an opposing opinion, and this is no exception. Something I've read has outraged me and I must stand and take issue with it, even if the author is myself.

Loyal followers of this column or those who simply read the headlines will no doubt know the past column written by yours truly spoke very harshly of myself and, in fact, wished repeatedly for me to "be dead." I can't tell you how offended I was when I finally read it again last night.

I'm sure I was going through a difficult time when I sired such a column, but is that any excuse? I dare say it is not. My high journalistic standards apparently evaded me for some period while I churned out tripe the likes of which I have never seen. I expected that from other journalists, but not from Rok Finger.

And the continuous use of filthy language? Insulting. Sure, I engage in a tasty dash of profanity once in a while, but I try to restrict how much of that sees print. I can't believe Rok Finger would sink to the levels of say, commune columnists, to write such unimaginative drivel. Are "fuck" and "shit" any better than saying "procreate" and "pinch one out"? No. If Rok Finger thinks it is, maybe Rok Finger shouldn't be given free reign to write whatever he pleases.

As for all these repeated references to death and the desire to die… well, Mr. Finger, I hope I'm prepared to put my money where my mouth is. If I want to die so badly, why don't I just go out and do it? Actually, in my defense, I made a few half-hearted efforts to do so, but was thwarted by my unwillingness to carry it out. Just as I thought. I've proved my own point.

Death and suicide are not to be joked about lightly, at least not my someone who lacks a sense of humor so obviously as myself. For making my loyal readers endure all this self-pitying, depressing talk, I should apologize.

Altogether, if there's one thing about my previous column that really makes me angry, it's the negative references to my wife Arvelyn. It's true, Arvelyn and I have separated, but we're not giving up on reconciliation or working things out. If all else fails, we're still friends, and I will not stand by and see myself defame her in such a fashion in print. Say what I want about me, but I won't allow me to make a mockery of her in public. Next time, Rok, let's just keep things on a civil level, eh? If you can manage that.

The same goes with the disparaging comments made about my commune co-workers. They are all skilled and competent reporters, given their limitations, and I refuse to dignify my rants with a response.

Maybe if I spent a little less time listening to my "dope show" songs and reading The Catcher in the Rye I could engage in more valid commentary on the nature of life and such fun things and why Band-Aids no longer use those little red threads to open.

Get your act together, Rok Finger. Columns like that are a major disappointment. I can't say with certainty I'll ever read my work again.

º Last Column: I Wish I Was Dead or Otherwise Incapacitated
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Anyone who hasn't been living under a rock for the last twenty years doesn't need to be told this, but just in case I have any hermit crabs among my readership, let me state this loud and clear: Omar Bricks is not afraid of a controversial tee-shirt.

And if there really are hermit crabs among my readership, I encourage you to drop an email and let me know what the hell is up with that. I'm serious, that's some crazy beer commercial shit there.

But speaking of tee-shirts: I don't mean the generic, run-of-the-mill "controversial" tee-shirts that you see every fifteen year-old wiseass with thirty bucks and a smirk wearing at the mall. This column has no time for Big Johnson, Osama Bin Hidin', or any of that immature teenage shwag. And if your shirt's asking a question, it sure as hell had better not be about how the daschunds got in the pool, or however the song goes.

Nor am I specifically addressing the clever subversion of corporate logos that say Fuct instead of Ford or McDahmer instead of McDonalds or the many clever variants on Pepsi, though I do think those are pretty sharp. And believe me, Omar Bricks is all about those corporate scumbags getting their just desserts via a clever tee-shirt.

What I'm talking about here is the holy hell I recently had dished to me after I started wearing my new shirt that has a picture of a Chips Ahoy bag on the front, but it says Tits Ahoy instead. And before you start in with your weekly "Omar is a sexist smear of dick-drizzle" letters and your lightly perfumed feminist mail bombs and your diatribes about how I wasn't breastfed, let it be known that this particular shirt was a gift from my own mother, the venerable Mama Bricks herself. If you want to take up your sexism campaign with her, I say go right ahead, but be warned that she's highly paranoid and quick with a pair of nunchucks.

Now, I'm sure some would argue that I was just looking for trouble when I wore that shirt into the NOW convention last week, but anybody who's read the police report knows that I stumbled in there looking for a place to pee. A string of words to the wise and heavily inebriated: don't stagger into a feminist convention with your little benny hanging out unless you're wearing a Lillith Fair tee-shirt or have a Little Orphan Ani Difranco tattoo on your forehead to make everything balance out. You'll thank me for that one later.

But the thing that this ballroom full of garden-shear-wielding feminists didn't understand (besides the fact that screaming "Holy Shit, it's Axl Rose!" before you run away is the oldest trick in the book) was that they're barking up the wrong tree when they get their estrogen up over a simple celebration of femininity like a classy Tits Ahoy tee-shirt. What really should have worried them would be if I had staggered into that ballroom wearing an Oklahoma! tee-shirt and a hoop earring or something, because that would mean their mating pool just got one guy smaller. And if I were a lady I'd be watching what I said very carefully, lest I pushed the male sex over the line and found myself home alone on Saturday nights while all of the guys were out at a Freddie Prinz Jr. movie, if you know what I'm saying.

But some people just don't get it, and they're going to drone on about how my shirt's degrading to women, and blah blah blah. Reality check: what's really degrading are those Tom Cruise haircuts, ladies. Have you looked in the mirror lately? You look like a bunch of junior-high kids on a debate field trip. And those business suits should be the next to go. Nobody in this reality wants to make time with a lady dressed like Lee Iacocca, and you're going to liberate yourself right into a personals ad.

In the end, this is just a long way of saying that the emperor's new clothes are here to stay, at least until this shirt picks up a chili stain or two. Of course, both my secretary and the commune's mail clerk quit the first day I wore it to work, though not for the stick-up-the-ass reasons that you're thinking. I guess that last mail bomb just scared them more than they let on at the time. Needless to say, I think I'm going to have to put the temp agency on speed-dial. Bricks out.

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