Monday, February 23, 2009

Who is Carlo Sands? 25 things you never knew about the man behind the pint

There so many myths out there about the life of Carlo Sands.

His shady past, personal habits, love affairs, these things are speculated wildly about in the tabloids, online chat forums and scientific journals all over the world. Is he Rasputin's love child? Did he really go on a 25-year-long pear cider binge? And, is it true he has dumped Johnny Depp for Lily Allen?

The time has come to separate out fact from fiction. Based on one of those horrible Facebook "list" things that people insist on infecting their friends with, here are "25 things you never knew about the man behind the pint".

Tell your friends.

* * *

1. Carlo Sands is an alcoholic.

2. Carlo Sands likes to refer to himself in the third person. It makes him feel important.

3. Carlo Sands is not on speaking terms with his liver. He suspects the "generation gap" is to blame. His liver will enjoy its 90th birthday next weekend.

4. Carlo Sands was given two phone numbers for AA from a friend just the other day. He appreciates thought, but cannot attend the meetings as, worst luck, they clash with happy hour.

5. Carlo Sands does not have a drinking problem, 'cept when he can't get a drink.

7. Carlo Sands believes strongly that work is the curse of the drinking class.

8. He also likes to take epigrams uttered by Oscar Wilde, and claim them as his own.

9. Carlo Sands beer consumption is such that he is the stimulus package. Kevin called him personally to discuss a bail-out of his budget to stave off the total meltdown of the Australian economy. In fact once, when he briefly threatened to stop drinking, the head of the Reserve Bank, the treasury department and a representative of the Chamber of Commerce staged an intervention to convince him the nation needed him at the pub.

10. Carlo Sands goes on regular health kicks, during which he goes out of his way to kick his health as hard as possible.

11. Carlo Sands' idea of looking after his health is to only smoke other people's cigarettes.

12. Carlo Sands' idea of looking after his finances is to only smoke other people's cigarettes.

13. Other people get pissed off when Carlo Sands smokes all their cigarettes.

14. Carlo Sands joined the Facebook group "Who is Carlo Sands?", even though he knows the answer.

15. Carlo Sands was once the subject of intense debate on a North American-based left-wing e-list. This is the highlight of his otherwise quite uneventful life, with the exception of his key role during the French Revolution.

16. Carlo Sands misses the guillotine. He thinks that, in the absence of the guillotine, it is hard to go past the garrotte.

17. Carlo Sands has been informed he is being seriously considered for this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

18. Carlo Sands has his own personal arch enemy, whom he believes to be the "anti-Carlo". His name is Ben Warren, he lives in Canberra and Carlo knows where he works. He runs a blog called "Get fit with Ben!".

19. Carlo Sands has currently two duels to the death on his agenda. The first of these is with a cad who chose aging as his weapon. Carlo looks forward to attending the cad's funeral but worries whether it will be bad taste to wear a triumphant grin. He has a second duel to be carried out after the first has been completed.*

22. Carlo Sands is engaged to be married to Lily Allen. However, this is top secret. And everyone knows that Lily Allen is good at keeping engagements secret. This is so that Johnny Depp, with whom Carlo Sands has had a complicated, off-and on again long-term relationship with, does not find out.

24. Carlo Sands is plotting to kill you all.

25. Carlo Sands' lawyer has advised him to make no further comment at this time.

* * *

POSTSCRIPT

* It is with a heavy heart I must inform my loyal readers that, since the above quiz was completed, calamity has struck!

YES! Due to an unforeseen circumstance and, frankly (though I do not wish to appear a bad sport), SHOCKING bad luck, I regret to inform my multitude of fans that Carlo Sands lost the duel referred to in this post.

Also, I am dead.

I mean, that should be obvious, logically, as I had already explained it was a duel to the death, but sometimes you need to spell these things out to avoid misunderstandings.

I shall attempt as best I can to explain how this catastrophe occurred. And I assume it will shock few if I point out that, at bottom, this is all Facebook's fault.

The facts are these. As I was the challenger in the duel, the challengee -- a cad whose murderous name is not even worth mentioning on such a civilised blog -- reserved the right to choose the weapon.

As I explained, the cad chose aging -- claiming he had seen the state of my liver and it was only a matter of time.

But it was not liver failure that did me in. It was a Facebook quiz.

Foolishly, without a thought to the consequences, I took the quiz "When will you die?"

And I received the answer: October 21, 2008.

I took the quiz sometime in 2009 and, as we all know Facebook never lies, the cad promptly declared a victory I had no legal, technical nor moral grounds to deny.

It is always disturbing to discover you have dead for many months. It is much worse when it involves losing a duel to the death to a cad.

I won't deny it was a shock, but I am coping as best I can. Still, if you wish to assist with my grief, you can donate consoling booze via the paypal donate button near the top of the right hand column.

I have reconsidered my position on these extra questions, in light of the all the work you have put in at the Institute of Sandsology.

I understand demand for knowledge about all aspects of my life is great indeed, so I shall relent and very kindly answer these five extra questions *on top of* the 25 I have already provided.

I trust no further encroachment on my very valuable time shall be demanded.

1. Neither. I am a 'Huey" man.

2. Booze.

3. Booze.

4. Ah, the old choice of purgatory for a year or heaven for an hour.

My answer is simple.

I would accept the years supply of XXXX gold, open a stubby, empty it of its contents and smash the bottle.

Then with my broken bottle weapon in hand, go and hold up a liquor store and steal TWO bottles of Bombay Sapphire.

That is called *thinking*.

5. Nine lives for a liver? What the fuck are you talking about? I have never heard anything so ridiculous in all my life. Clearly, you have failed to adhere my advice in my post "The demon weed: Don't touch it, it will ruin your life".

I have answered the questions. Now, leave me alone to my two bottles of Bombay Saphire.

yous in alcohol abuse,Carlo Sands,apparently deceased according to the Facebook quiz "When will you die".

I was not aware consumption of beer automatically precluded consumption of scotch.

I refer you to the analogy I used in a recent post for the US government's plans to deal with the fact it is losing the Afghanistan war by extending the war into the more populous nation of Pakistan:

“I try this technique all the time. Horribly drunk after far too many beers, I solve the problem by following each further beer with whiskey chasers.

“The results for me are about the same as for the US Empire — pain, tears and stained carpets."

— From “Orwell belatedly recognised (or the Nobel Peace Prize — just like the Grammys only bloodier”, October 10, 2009. See http://carlosands.blogspot.com/2009/10/orwell-belatedly-recognised-or-nobel.html

Before some useless pedant points out that the above quote refers to Irish whiskey, not scotch, I happily drink both in whatever quantities a generous benefactor is prepared to pay for to have them poured down my throat.

Young celebrities with "alleged" drinking problems should come to Ireland (or anywhere with a healthy drinking culture) and see that they are just normal after all.... I'm looking at you Lindsay Lohan.

About Me

Gentleman ranter. Proof that if you give a man a mask, he may tell you the truth, but give him enough beer and he'll shout it at you. My life-long ambition is to get more Twitter followers than Taylor Swift (last count, only 34,042,711 behind.) Follow me at @carlogrubsands to make an old man's dream come true.