FUN-GUY (or GAL) BEER TRICK

 

(See a Fun Guy drink the product of the FUNGI by placing a bottle on his head and then consuming the contents without touching the bottle with his hands!!) 

 

This beer trick has a somewhat mysterious history but its connection to FABI goes back some thirty years.  Let me share this with you as best I can remember and somewhat with the help of my good friend John Mildenhall, retired Professor of the University of Fort Hare in South Africa. 

 

The first time I saw this trick done was at the Annual meeting of the South African Society for Microbiology and Plant Pathology held in Bloemfontein in 1980.  For me, this was a memorable meeting on many counts.  It was the meeting where the South African Microbiologists decided to split from the Plant Pathologists to form an independent society.  As a young scientist I found the debate rather shocking and I have always felt that this was a very negative move. Yet, I was newly married and full of optimism and also preparing to leave for the United States to undertake a Ph.D. Various other “strange things” happened at that meeting –please don’t ask Chrissie Rey for her views!  However, by far the most remarkable things that I think I had ever seen up to that point was the esteemed Prof. John Mildenhall of the University of Fort Hare, after some very strong persuasion, stand up on a stage, put a glass of beer on his head and proceed to show us that he could consume the contents of the glass without touching the glass with his hands.  It was truly amazing – not a sole dared to try the trick. 

 

When I returned to South Africa and attended the annual meeting of the SASPP in January of 1985, at Hogsback, the trick was performed again, although there were so many crazy things happening at that meeting that I don’t remember the details.  What I do remember is a few people trying the trick in the light rain and that various of them (no names mentioned here) were very sparsely dressed.  Then in1986?, our society met at the Golden Gate National Park and history was made.  At this meeting a number of female honours students (Michelle van Schoor was one) from the University of Natal watched John do the trick in a small bar. And the next thing, they proceeded to show that they could do this just as well – and perhaps with a bit more style.  Thus the trick became a competitive event at these meetings – known in that manifestation as the “Mildenhall Stakes”.   

 

When FABI was established in 1998, the site of the annual meetings of the Tree Protection Co-operative Programme (then ten years old) moved to Pretoria.  At our 10^th TPCP in 2000, Jolanda Roux of the programme was asked to demonstrate the trick, which she did so in grand style.  Foresters being foresters, were determined to give this a try and what became known as the TPCP “Hands free beer slug” was initiated as an annual competitive event.  In this case a “floating trophy”  was sourced and it has been awarded to member forestry companies based on the ability of one of their staff members to do the trick, for the last ten years.  Pictures going back to 2004 can be seen on the TPCP web site- and these include visiting scientists from various parts of the world trying their luck.  There are some classic shots – they are worth a peep!! Click Here to have a look.

 

Now to get to the beginning and where I should perhaps have started!  The history of this amazing beer trick, at least for us starts with John Mildenhall.  John was a student at the University of Natal in 1964 and one evening during a University holiday, he was drinking beer at the Royal Hotel in Fort Beaufort, when a friend Ernest de Villiers challenged anyone in the group to drink a beer off their head without touching the glass with their hands.  Ernest was able to do this- and in his words “after a long time practicing with glasses of water and behind closed doors”, John mastered the trick and later had many contests with Ernest in the Royal Hotel at Fort Beaufort. 

 

When John left South Africa in 1967 to study plant pathology at the University of Wisconsin, he joined the local rugby team.  Not surprisingly, if you know John, he began to challenge opponent rugby players to buy drinks, if he could do this amazing trick.  In his words again “I won many drinks for the Wisconsin rugby team and had to do the trick not from a starting position on the floor, but on a bar counter”.  John did this trick in many bars in the United States, for Chicago to New Orleans and has shared many stories about some of these acts.  Most of these are best not shared here! 

 

The video clip that is included with this short historical account of an amazing beer trick is of Chinese Ph.D. student Shauifei Chen who has mastered his version of the beer trick.  It is not identical to that done by John Mildenhall but very similar. What is very different is that Shauifei has found a way to do the trick not only in one direction –to place a bottle on his head and then to drink the contents without touching the bottle with his hands.  But thereafter, and again without touching the bottle with his hands, to return the bottle to his head and eventually return to his starting position. 

 

I need to end this story with a question. This is where the trick really began.  Who was the first person to think of putting a beer on his head and then to try and consume the contents without touching the container?  The furthest back we can go is to 1964 and Ernest de Villiers showing this trick to John Mildenhall in Fort Beaufort.  But where did Ernest first see this.  At a recent dinner party, Ernest (now 75 years old) told John that he had seen this trick done in 1962 when the Forrt Beaufort cricket team went on tour to Rhodesia. This happened at one of the after match pub parties where Ernest saw a guy do the trick. And that is as far back as we can go.  Somewhere there must be a real beginning.  A person with a wild imagination!   

And as a final note, what of yours truly?  I am many times asked whether I have managed to do this trick!  I will admit that I have tried many times and Prof. Chrissie Rey and a few others will attest to this…. at least for those attempts that were not behind closed doors!  The results have been both embarrassing and disappointing and I thus retired from the competition in the late 1980’s and when reality had eventually struck.   

 

Mike Wingfield June 2010 and with thanks to John Mildenhall for filling in the pieces. 

 

Some More Fabian in Action: