As Dodgy Perth prepares to leave for Bali this afternoon, and enjoy continuous Bintangs by the pool, it seems appropriate to abandon you for a week with this cheery alcohol-related story.

In the early 1950s, a chicken by the improbable name of Georgina Thigwell Johnston was living at the Ship Hotel in Busselton.

(If you want to be accurate, it wasn’t just a chicken. It was a white leghorn. But, anyway, back to the story.)

Each night Georgina Thigwell Johnston sat on the bar counter and had a glass of draught beer. Hopefully Emu Bitter, but I cannot be sure of this.

The cook of the hotel had a £5 bet that she could raise Georgina Thigwell Johnston exclusively on a diet of beer. Which is, to be honest, my kind of diet.

If the reports are to be believed, the boozed-up chicken was demonstrating the benefits of her unusual meals and was the largest of all the hens in the hotel yard.

Mind you, Georgina Thigwell Johnston kept aloof from the other fowls and slept alone in a special box. So either she felt she was better than the other chickens. Or the other hens didn’t like the boring stories she would tell when under the influence.