Captain's Orders

Our faithful captain from the good ship the USS Enterprise-D gives the order. The crew respond. We lift our tiny little Vodka Jellies to our lips and struggle to get it to dislodge by shaking, tapping and sucking at them until the time it comes to give up and stick a finger in. The gelatinous ruby red treats slip, slide and slop their way to our mouths and we await further instructions.

This is Captain's Orders. The very much unofficial Star Trek drinking game for sensible, stay-at-home, Saturday night, sci-fi obsessed individuals who have become slightly bored with the Saturday evening TV schedule, overcrowded cinemas and over priced everything else. Credit be to Norn Girl for her version of a drinking game that seems to be in existence already but that might see people with alcohol poisoning within minutes!

Every once in a while letting your hair down and having a little indulgence in the merrier things at our disposal is almost a necessity. Sure it’s not everyone’s favourite thing to do and some even avoid the stuff all together, on occasion when I was younger and had less common sense I might have even told myself never again. However I lived, I learnt and I no longer overdo it except on special occasion and when with family who should know better! The 2009 me doesn’t mind taking a small hit on the body to maintain some mental health. A couple of pints of Guinness, a Bottle of the red stuff or some Vodka over the 2 days away from the stresses, strains and deadlines of the workplace and life in today’s world isn’t such a crazy thing. The government ads might err on the side of caution, and rightly so, but for the grown adult with at least a little control, the extra units of alcohol taken onboard responsibly with food and water, can in my opinion make life that bit more enjoyable. Not that Star Trek isn’t enjoyable, but if you’ve ever the situation whereby you have Vodka Jelly shots sitting in your fridge and a copy of Star Trek; The Next Generation on DVD waiting to be watched, it makes perfect sense!

So the rules. A Jelly Shot (pre determined strengths can be determined, for those with health problems or a life choice - non-alcoholic, regularly prepared Jelly could be used too) is to be consumed once an order from Captain Picard has been made. This has to be a direct order, group orders count as one, multiple orders without Picard drawing breath also only count as one.

Further to this, deciphering whether something is an order can be trickier than it seems. As Norn Girls family had come around to join us for a wee while, we were in high spirits. Not long after with only Norn Girl, her sister and yours truly remaining, we found ourselves in the other form of higher spirits. Not drunken, just tipsy, but still finding many of Jean Luc’s orders that were not direct orders but implied orders. We ruled that the likes of nods did not count.

It was a fun episode we had landed with. ‘Relics’ of Season 6. It wasn’t long before the TV started to talk to us and it wasn’t the ongoing alcoholic consumption. One order in this episode had lol-ing at the screen and on the front page of the ‘fail-blog’ of our minds. Picard, after going through the motions of an order, ends his long sentence with the words ‘but that’s not an order’ – sadly we had already ingested the Jelly, he just can’t make his mind up sometimes... I think he was on to us!

The irony of our little drinking game came about again when the good old Scotty of the original series fame and featuring in the episode, got his hands on a bottle of Aldebaran whiskey. A green liquid of strong alcohol that it turns out had been given to Guinan by non-other than Jean Luc Picard himself! So whilst Jean Luc and Scotty were downing their beverage, we too had been digging into the pile of jellies. We can blame Data for his fair share of them, orders are to Data what flames are to moths. He just can't keep away!

As we were drinking to one of the only episodes of TNG with an explanation of synthahol – Star Fleet’s alcoholic substitute, we might have thought this may have been just a slight coincidence but the TV was soon talking to us again. Scotty was up and about in a scene portrayed to be the day after he had drunk the Green stuff whilst coming to terms with his situation... and at this point came the line, “never get drunk unless you’re willing to pay for it the next day!”. Wise words indeed, though thankfully no hangover was had and we were up bright and early Sunday morning to head to a Carboot sale. The only downside, unless like me you’ve very little shame of being high on life and would do it without the influence of alcohol anyway - was being measured for a Bra wearing my other half’s undergarment over my clothing. Apparently I’m a moobalicious B cup but I think much credit could be given to the baggy T-shirt – still, more trips to the Gym required me thinks.

To finish off a fine night of Captain's orders we created shadow puppets, watched 2 and a half men and played some Wii games – I never said we were normal!

Captain's Orders - if you’re stressed and fancy living long and prospering, maybe you could give it a try and let us know how you get on?