Getting Paid To Drink:

LONDON - Found: drinking companions to join elderly gentleman for a friendly beer at his local pub.

Mike Hammond was bombarded with offers after advertising in his village post office for someone to accompany his 88-year-old father Jack on visits to a southern England pub from a nursing home.

He offered the lucky winner 7 pounds ($14) an hour plus expenses and, after sifting through the applicants, decided on a job-share. Drinking duties are to be divided between a retired doctor and a former military man.

"Dad's now going to be going down to the pub several times a week -- three with his new friends and twice with me," Mike Hammond told The Times on Thursday. "I want to give him some of his old life back."

Man Charged With Driving Lawnmower Drunk:

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - A New Zealand man has been charged with driving a lawn mower while drunk, police said Tuesday. Richard Gunn, 52, was driving the lawn mower down a street in the northern New Zealand town of Dargaville late Monday evening when police stopped him, police spokeswoman Sarah Kennett said. Gunn's breath alcohol level was at more than twice the legal limit for drivers, police said, and he previously had lost his driver's license. Gunn said he has been using the lawn mower to get around town since losing his license. "I thought I was safe," he told TV One News. Even bicycles went faster than the lawn mower's 5 mph, he said. "I've watched them go past me." Gunn was scheduled to appear in court later this week on charges of careless driving, driving while disqualified and driving with excess breath alcohol. He faces a potential prison term if convicted. Police impounded the lawn mower for 28 days.

Mickey Rourke At It Again. Big Surprise:

In this photo combo provided by the Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation Department Thursday, Nov. 8, 2007, actor Mickey Rourke is shown. Rourke was arrested Thursday for driving under the influence on a green scooter, in Miami Beach, Fla., authorities said. (AP Photo/Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation Department)

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A scooter-riding Mickey Rourke was arrested Thursday on suspicion of driving under the influence.

Rourke, star of "Sin City," "Diner" and "9 1/2 Weeks," was arrested at 4:20 a.m. and booked at the Miami-Dade County Jail, said Janelle Hall, a jail spokeswoman. He was released on a $1,000 bond, she said.

A telephone message left at the office of Rourke's agent wasn't immediately returned.

A Miami Beach Police report said Rourke made a U-turn with a red light and then swerved several times while on a green scooter. He had a flushed face and bloodshot, watery eyes, his speech was slurred, and he had a strong odor of alcohol on his breath, the report said.

"I'm not drunk, I didn't even drink that much," the report quoted Rourke as saying.

Rourke, 51, allegedly failed field-sobriety tests before being taken to headquarters. He also failed an alcohol breath test, police said.

Beer Is Good. And Stuff:

A HANDFUL OF FAMOUS BEER QUOTES:

Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.
--Ernest Hemmingway

He was a wise man who invented beer. --
Plato

Time is never wasted when you're wasted all the time.
--Catherine Zandonella

If God hadn't intended us to drink beer, he wouldn't have given us stomachs.
--David Daye

When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.
--Henny Youngman

Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
--Benjamin Franklin

Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not gonearly as well with pizza.
--Dave Barry

The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind.
--Humphrey Bogart

People who drink light "beer" don't like the taste of beer; they just like to pee a lot.
--Capital Brewery, Middleton, WI

Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer.
--Dave Barry

I drink to make other people interesting.
--George Jean Nathan

They who drink beer will think beer.
--Washington Irving

An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.
--For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway

You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.
--Dean Martin