Apparently the North Wales police force recently pulled off a sting by "hir[ing] a troupe of actors to impersonate drunks." The idea was to see if bartenders would at some point deny them alcohol, deciding they'd had enough. It didn't happen.

This leads fellow "thespian" Michael Simkins to wonder, though: how convincing were these actors? "You may not be able to spot a drunk that easily, but it sure is easy to spot a bad impersonation of one." People seem to think acting drunk is easy as pie--you just "slur your words, put lampshades on your head and launch into your Jimmy Cagney impression." Not so. "The overarching concern of serious drunks is to disguise the fact. ... Far from staggering round the place, their progress to and from the bar is conducted with all the delicacy of Charles Blondin crossing the Niagara Falls."

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Heather Horn