Here’s the Radio Four page.

This was on the back of health secretary Alan Johnson’s remarks about teetotallers being pariahs.

Stop press – I got 121 comments in all. Not bad really.

It’s a positive review, but also contains the words: ‘Anyone with a drink problem who wants to find out how to kick it will not find what they need in its pages.’ This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this. Note the title of the book starts with: How I. I wouldn’t dream of telling anyone else how to give up drinking. I think I’ve gone into quite a lot of detail about what I did. Again, I sometimes wonder if reviewers actually read the books they’re meant to be writing about.

Folks, you have to find your own way. No one else can do it for you. I, and anyone else, can only make suggestions.

And here’s Tom Widger in the Tribune, second one down. One error in there, but it’s not his fault.

And the Scottish Daily Record.

PY, best known for his stint running the Millennium Dome, is a charming, jolly bloke, with an English wife and young baby. We, and the BBC’s Claire Burgoyne, sat in the corner with mugs of tea as we brainstormed about what could be done. He has lived in the UK for years, and continues to be astounded by London’s late night carnage. ‘In Paris, if you saw someone lying in the road like that, you would stop and ask them if they were ok.’ In this country you might expect to be stabbed, or at least spat at, during the process of such an enquiry, and would tend to back off.

For PY, the clincher happened when he was driving through town and saw a man slumped on the pavement with a pint of Guinness. He drank some of it, vomited it back into the glass, drank some, and then vomited again. The man was clearly a true Brit doing what we do best. But how to change this culture?

I wonder if it’s time to introduce shame into the process. We did it with drink-driving, why not public drunkenness as a whole? We had a very interesting chat.

The programme will air on Radio 4 in a couple of months time.

Not bad at all, although I’ve come to realise that I don’t write books for reviewers. I could go down the road of fane wrayting, I suppose, but there’s already a bit too much of that about, and I feel very sorry for the judges of literary prizes having to wade through it all. I think I’d rather write books that spoke to ordinary people.

Drastic Measures: Increasingly ashamed of her rare but mortifying drunken displays, Viv Groskop decided to seek help. She spoke to experts and reformed bingers in her bid to achieve the Holy Grail of drinking: moderation

I’ve never been to Dubai, and have always suspected that it bears more than a little resemblance to the Mos Eisley Cantina in Star Wars, albeit glitzier and more hypocritical.  Over the last few years I’ve been noticing the increasing number of job ads for various editorial positions over there and, during my darker moments, have wondered whether I should just cut and run, with half an eye on the potential for tanning, as well as the tax free salary.

But then I remember my own expat experiences.  And my own expat behaviours.  And certain western woman travel experiences in certain countries.  And I think, no, maybe not.

I wrote about it in Cleaning Up.  When I went to work in Turkey, I left my car behind and lo! I could drink as much as I wanted.  And I did.  My consumption rocketed.  En masse we used to take over a local bar, very much male domains over there, and drink cheap beer.  The women were tolerated because we were always accompanied by several loud, drunken blokes, and we spent a lot of money.  (I mean the expat women of course – our Turkish female colleagues would barely set foot in such a place).  

Out in the street, sober or not, I had horrible standoffs with men, who always had to try and grab themselves a piece, and got very ugly if you didn’t want to be groped by them.  I wonder what the men in Dubai are like, once you’ve strayed from the gleaming corporate byways. 

Going back a few more years, I lived in Paris, and also fell into drinking huge amounts.  We used to meet at La Palette, among other places, and get totally honkered.  We were usually too drunk for decent sex (see also Turkey), but plenty went on, I think.

I remember some Frenchman declaring, not concerned whether I understood him or not, that ‘Les Anglais ne peuvent s’amuser sans boire.’ (‘The English can’t have a good time without drinking’.) [Actually I really ought to delete the funny forrin bit just there, because English people think you're pretentious if you know any other languages, unless it's Dutch drug slang.]  Well, he was right, and here I am. 

Anyway, a sober person, what would I do abroad?  Join the Hash House Harriers?  The Lions?  And what would I do at sundown, the drinking hour, as the heavy scent of jasmine rises up around me, and the lights go on? Actually, in Dubai, it would be the heavy scent of traffic fumes, most likely, before I descended into some over-airconditioned champagne bar, and sat there shivering until I was twatted enough not to notice any more.

I think Michelle’s probably better off back home.

Quite a few of the people who then turned up were known to me personally, including a couple I hadn’t seen for a while, so inevitably the pre-reading conversation became loud, and reminiscent of parties past, with various drug and drink-related joking going on. While I was wandering around the room, chatting casually, I noticed her in the corner at the back, looking uncomfortable.

I suddenly felt highly conscious of the fact that I was not being sufficiently reverential towards the concept of addiction. I can’t remember what we were all actually joking about, but I realised that two worlds were knocking against each other, with no hope of making a connection.

I delivered the first half of my reading too fast, my excuse being that I hadn’t done a gig for a while. It was full of ranting and jokes, and perhaps vulgarity. As soon as I stopped for a break, the lady got up, declared she was going for a cigarette, and scurried out of the door. No one saw her again.

For a moment I felt almost guilty, for laughing at my own past misfortunes and thereby for disappointing her. Perhaps she was expecting a spiritual tour of my abstinence, with a dash of twelve stepping thrown in. But whatever she was thinking or feeling, I hope she’s okay.