NO, IT’S NOT JUST WAFFLE... THIS IS BINCHE DRINKING

ON HIS TRAVELS MAL ROGERS

LE BINGEING

I’VE just bought a new thesaurus – I tell you, it’s nothing to write house about.

The reason I got it was binge drinking. No, not mine; rather the expression and its origins and synonyms.

In German ‘binge drinking’ is ‘komasaufen’, in Swedish it’s ‘berusningsdrickande’ and in Spanish it’s the somewhat less than nifty ‘el consumo excesivo de alcohol’.

The French, until now have gone Anglo-Saxon, talking about ‘le binge drinking’, peppering their conversation with it over the years willy nilly (or le willy et le nilly).

However, the French authorities, always anxious to protect the purity of their language, have constantly tried to replace ‘binge drinking’ with a more Gallic ‘beuverie express’, which basically translates as ‘fast drinking’. The expression was given official approval from the Culture Ministry’s General Commission of Terminology and Neology.

So far, the official move has met with little success.

But it’s possible the French authorities moved too fast against Anglo-Saxon intrusion. Although the etymology of the word ‘binge’ is unclear, a strong theory exists that it derives from the Belgian town of Binche – and a very interesting place it is too.

I’ve spent many happy days in this, the Walloon (or Frenchspeaking part) of Belgium; the local carnival of Binche on the preceding days before Ash Wednesday is a byword for excess and licentiousness. I always feel immediately at home in this delightful town.

On the subject of vocabulary, an expression I’m particularly keen on at just now is ‘Don’t go there’.

I caught the expression from a friend in Dundalk, and use it everywhere now. In fact I’m not sure how I managed without it. Its origins are unclear, but seems to have emerged in the US around the 1990s. Where ‘there’ is, nobody seems to know. I’ve asked around, but no luck. Whether there are a lot of people already there who are now wondering why no one else is coming remains a mystery. Perhaps we just shouldn’t go there.

It would make a good title for a book – I just can’t think of which one. Maybe a travel book about places that are spectacularly bad value, or are the biggest disappointments: Don’t Go There.

But Binche – yes, definitely do go there.

IT’S LUNACY

RICHARD Branson, Elon Musk and Boeing are all keen to bring space tourism a spot closer, whether it’s another visit to the Moon, a first time nofrills flight to Mars, or merely a jaunt into weightlessness.

But Nasa in Florida can still provide space thrills for Earth-based travellers. Their multiaxis trainer, or MAT, is a sphereshaped machine used to prepare astronauts for tumble spins during reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. And they’re happy to let you have a go.

MAT is just one part of Astronaut Training Experience (ATX) at Kennedy Space Center www. kennedyspacecenter.com. It offers groundlings the chance to sample some of the gruelling tests real-life astronauts face en route to weightlessness.

The half-day programme costs from £110, including a ride in a shuttle simulator and micro-gravity harness. To be honest, it’s probably the best chance of publicity that Nasa has got since they faked that moon-landing thing way back in 1969. But don’t mention that at the Space Center. They won’t think it’s funny. ASTONISHING SPACE FACT: If you were to start singing ‘And I would walk 500 miles’ on the International Space Station, you’d have travelled 1000 miles before the song was finished.

ITALIAN YOB

THE town of Taormina in Sicily has cracked down on brawling waiters, who have a history of fighting on the streets as they compete for tourists’ custom. Under council orders, restaurants have had to erect fences to separate staff who prowl pavements luring holidaymakers into their establishments. Last year, tempers flared when a female restaurant staff member objected to a waiter’s aggressive menu-waving tactics. The woman pushed the man away from her premises. He promptly pushed her back. Cue mayhem: waiters, male and female, from both restaurants joined thefracas, kicking and throwing punches, overturning tables as tourists fled the restaurant. So far, this year has seen no repeat of these scenes in what is one of Sicily’s prettiest destinations.

But I’ve a possible solution for the Sicilian authorities should trouble erupt again.

On a press trip to Sicily once, I was one of half a dozen journalists – including one, Jamie, from an English tabloid. He was everything you’d want in a tabloid hack – small, bullheaded, tenacious, mouthy, fearless; straight from central casting.

On the coach trip up from Palermo to Savoca (where much of the Sicilian part of The Godfather was filmed), our guide admitted that ‘there were still some problems in the area with organised crime’. That’s what we journalists like to call understatement.

We decamped at the Chiesa di Santa Lucia, where Michael Corleone married. Our guide was trying to give us the history of the church, but couldn’t be heard over the noise of a car stereo booming out of a racy-looking Porsche, blacked-out windows, tough-looking owners lolling on the bonnet, the lot.

Jamie took one look, strode over, and shouted, “F ****** turn it down mate. We’re f ******* trying to learn about the church.”

The odd thing is – Jamie didn’t end up sleeping with the fishes.

The people in the Porsche turned their music down, then meekly drove off, presumably accepting they’d met their match. Whether they understood Jamie’s exact wording I don’t know, but somehow they got his message. Our guide merely gawped. I think Jamie would be more than a match for the waiters of Taormina.

EU EU OH

BREXIT lumbers on in Britain, with the UK government (and the population of Britain) deeply divided. Horror stories about the EU still circulate among Brexiteers. But would you be taken in by the anti-EU propaganda? Have a look at the following and see which you think are true: a) The EU is to ban several popular flowers (which may include irises, lupins and lavender) from garden centres in order to comply with horticultural regulations; b) From next year, traditional pizzas will have to comply with EU dimensions as regards diameter and depth;

c) By 2020, Ireland will have to be restocked with all the snakes driven out by St Patrick;

d) No bouncy castle is to be erected within a mile of any real castle. The EU regards this as demeaning to both castles, bouncy and non-bouncy.

e) From next year, mushy peas are to be classified as an adhesive rather than a vegetable, and will thus attract VAT;

f) Under the Common Agricultural Policy, The Fields of Athenry are to be put into crop rotation and left fallow for five years to allow the turf to grow back.

The singing of the song in any public arena (including karaoke bars) will be banned. So which of these is true? . . . . . The answer is, of course, none of them.