CITY NOTES
Normally, reports of people dying after drinking liquor emanate from South India. This time, it was Istanbul. No less than 37 people have died since November 1 in the region. Last year, around 25 people died in various regions. The year before that, 40 had died. We haven’t even come to that season, or Christmas and New Year’s.
The problem arises with makers lacing the liquor with industrial ethanol. Ethanol, while the active ingredient in all alcoholic drinks, also has industrial uses, mostly as a solvent. Pure alcohol is never produced for drinking. Alcoholic drinks are produced by fermenting some fruit or vegetable, or even grain. The most popular drink in Turkey, for example, is raki, which is a fermentation of aniseed (the homely saunf, used so extensively in paan).
So though you have the usual beer and whiskey made in Pakistan, you also have country liquor, made from whatever is available, which might be oranges and tangerines around here, and apricots in the famous ‘Hunza water’ up north. However, there is also the temptation to boost the kick in the country liquor, by adding ethanol to it.
The problem with industrial alcohol, or ethanol, is that methanol is always added to it. Now methanol is highly poisonous, so the ethanol it is added to, becomes poisonous too. So does the country liquor. Now in Turkey, it seems, alcohol prices are high; too high for many, leading to people trying to make counterfeit alcohol.
High excise taxes are also a reason for making counterfeit alcohol. That seems to be the reason why there was so much illegal whiskey once made in the American South. Tax evasion seems to be the reason why so many Tamils lace the country liquor with what are called ‘denatured spirits.’ Toddy palm sap contains sugar. The topers among them usually ferment the sap of the toddy palm, to make toddy, or distill it to make arrack. Arrack is a very strong liquor, so those who have made it illegally try to boost it with industrial alcohol.
Now alcohol, whether methanol or ethanol, affects the brain. So people die because they stop breathing. Survivors may go blind, because those centres of the brain are permanently affected. So of the 23 still under treatment, sight should be a vulnerability. Where do you think the term ‘blind drunk’ comes from?
I’m reminded of the Ottoman Sultan, Murad IV, who used to wander the streets of Istanbul, punishing anyone he caught drinking with death, executing sentence on the spot personally. It’s ironic that he himself drank himself to death. Obviously someone with a conflicted attitude towards drinking, which is understandable for a Muslim.
I see the South Korean President has been impeached. He won’t be removed from office, but the Supreme Court will now decide whether he should be removed from office. He should get in the neck, because a civilian like him has no right to declare Martial Law. That should be left to soldiers.
The USA can’t pay attention to him because it has to deal with its President-elect’s new haircut. Trump has apparently got rid of his trademark quiff, and gone for a shown look. It seems he’s inspired by North Korea’s Kim Yong-il, whose barber has apparently started making housecalls. Trump is showing why he appealed so strongly to the young. I mean, can you imagine Biden trying to pull a stunt like that. Trump now looks like a plucked chicken. I think he should go for it, and shave his head. Anyone remember Kojack?
South Korea was deprived of the attention of the Cuptaan as well, because he was too busy considering the implications of South Africa’s betrayal. Did they have to gift Shaheen Shah Afridi four wickets in the last one-dayer, and lose the series? OK losing the series is no big del. No way the captain, Rizwan, is going to get on the same page. He’s too ugly. But Shaheen isn’t.
