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From The Times
August 20, 2007

Power of drink

Kevin Rudd's strip-club debacle is far from the first drunken error of an Aussie politician

- Bob Hawke, Australia’s Prime Minister from 1983-1991, once appeared in the Guinness Book of Records for drinking the world’s fastest yard of ale

- Max Willis, once president of the New South Wales Upper House, was obliged to resign last year after attending a late-night sitting in a drunken state

- The late Prime Minister Sir John Gorton was criticised by the Opposition when it was revealed that the notorious drinker had paid a backstage visit to Liza Minnelli, then a 22-year-old nightclub singer

- On a trip to the US, retired Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser was found in the lobby of a Memphis hotel clad only in a shirt and towel. Many blamed advanced inebriation and a thieving prostitute. He said he was drugged and the so-called “Memphis Trouser Incident” has never been solved

- In 2003 Andrew Bartlett, the leader of Australia’s Democrats, physically shook Liberal senator Jeannie Ferris while hurling abuse and loud obscenities at her in the parliamentary chamber after she accused him of taking wine bottles from a Christmas party He later apologised - and sent her a bottle of wine

Source: Times archives

" ..drinking the world’s fastest yard of ale"..

Just out of interest, what is the fastest yard of ale in the world and how fast it is?

Andy, London town,

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