Paul Hopkins: The Blonde in the Black Skirt affair

I was first introduced to Arthur Guinness at a family gathering when I had just turned 14. My Uncle Tom proffered me a bottle of the infamous brew, with sleight of hand, as he replenished glasses from his party pack by the pantry. “There you go,” he said, “that’ll put hair on your chest.’’ And he popped the cap and handed me this long and elegant, but cold and wet, bottle of stout. “And don’t let your mother catch you, or she’ll skin me alive.’’

I knew then that my Uncle Tom was my favourite uncle, but the game was long up before I had summoned the courage to ask for, perhaps, a second bottle, if that would be okay, amid remarks from older cousins and maiden aunts that “Oh look, Paul is having a drink” and I barely out of short trousers.

My first date with the Blonde in the Black Skirt holds bitter-sweet memories. Bitter in that that was the aftertaste, sweet in that it went down smoothly and put the settled head on my young shoulders and made me feel, all of sudden, quite grown up, if a little giddy.

But it was to be three years before I ventured to sup again from the black stuff, when I made my journey into the measured world of the public bar, cheap chandeliers, and brass fittings, peopled by young bucks and old men lost in familiar overcoats as they sat motionlessly, almost ritualistically, eyeing their bottle of Guinness and its accompanying whiskey chaser. It would be a brave man indeed who’d touch another man’s drink.

These were men-only, hallowed sanctuaries in the days before ‘wimmin’ journalists dared to sit in a men-only bar and refused to be moved until they had been served. When, in one fell swoop, we men and young bucks lost our last refuge from an increasingly frenetic world and women started holding their own.

In those early days of hanging out with the Blonde in the Black Skirt, my staple diet was three pints, a couple of times a week — I can still down a pint in less than 20 seconds if pushed — and when I got older and braver, a rum & black (no thank you, now) to round off an evening.

Guinness is an acquired taste. It isn't to the liking of everybody with some imbibers finding it a bit too thick to drink very much, if any, at all. It can be a very filling drink — the nutrient equivalent of half a loaf of bread— but not too high on alcohol (less than most lagers), which also helps if you want to have a few pints but don't want to be going mad altogether.

The once-proud art of pulling a pint, three-quarters poured at a 45-degree angle, to let settle before topping it up and allowing it to finally settle so that the creamy head is proportionate to the black body (no bishops’ collars here, please), is no longer a necessary thing as modern technology has put paid to that. Similarly, there was a time when to drink Guinness outside of the island of Ireland was to tempt fate at the bar and have your innards pay the price the morning after the night before. The excuse was: Guinness didn’t travel well.

Now, technology means a pint in Dublin, Dubai, or Durban, comes down to the same thing – a picture of perfection, a joy to behold, and there is no greater joy than to run your cupped hand down the length of the cold glass figure and watch the head slowly but succinctly settle as you consider the concerns of the closing day.

My GP once told me to stop smoking, cut down on the booze and lose weight. So, I said to him: “I was just thinking, mind, if you must drink, is there such a thing as a good drink?’’ – meaning the 'whites'. He looked up from his desk at which he was writing my prescription, and said: “Are you serious?” and went back to his scribble.

Such was the shock of his dismissal of my plea for a healthier lifestyle that I headed for the nearest watering hole to steady the nerves. It’s at times like that, and the rest, that you’d miss the odd night out in the company of the Blonde in the Black Skirt.