Murdering a Pint
Inspector Morse is a pretty legendary drinker. In one episode he drinks three bottles of vodka and eight pints of bitter. Now you too can go drinking with Oxford's favourite alcoholic detective - watch an episode on video with your drinking buddies and fine yourself according to the table below - if you've ever played the Star Wars game or the Withnail and I game you should be right at home. You should probably be in rehab as well, you drunkard. Fantasise about keeping Morse company in a corner of the White Horse and buying him drinks all night while he tells you about his fascinating career in the police, and his current perplexing case. If you get him sufficiently smashed he might even tell you his secret first name. Or he might tell you that he really loves you because you're a mate, and then be sick on your shoes.
Drink one finger... ...whenever you see a location where you have had lectures, parked your bike, eaten a kebab, had tutorials, or other connection. Reward yourself if you have a good story to tell. ...if you see a student in sub-fusc (two fingers if on a bike). ...every time there is an impossible scene change (eg walks out of the Bodleian Library into Peckwater Quad in Christ Church). ...whenever Morse patronises Lewis. Double if he uses his really growly voice. ...every time reference is made to a college or location that does not exist. ...for identifying the famous actors playing minor roles. ...for every time Morse complains that he needs a drink. ...for every pub. (Double if you've had a drink there, treble if it is a regular haunt). ...for every shameful Oxford stereotype - mad old scouts, ambitious young tutors with floppy hair, jolly hockey sticks female students, eccentric dons, rich nancy boys with no chins and wobbly lower lips.
Drink three fingers... ...every time someone gets killed. ...every time students are portrayed as more keen than they really are. ...for seeing someone you recognise. ...every time Morse does the crossword rather than getting on with solving some crimes. ...every time Morse says "Good God, Lewis!" ...every time Morse makes a classical or literary allusion that Lewis (and anyone else) fails to understand. ...for identifying scenes that are not actually shot in Oxford or its environs (e.g. scenes in Cambridge or Westminster College). ...every time Morse drives having clearly had too much to drink.
Finish your drink... ...when the murderer is arrested. ...for identifying the killer the first time he/she makes his appearance. ...every time Morse fails to get a shag. ...every time Morse grudgingly makes an embarrassing personal revelation.
Matching Morse... ...to show solidarity with our hero every time Morse drinks you match him, pint for pint. If he goes home and polishes off a bottle of gin, so do you. This will make some episodes considerably more difficult than others...
9th May 2002