Red brings out the wistful, the sadness, the memories of friends gone. Red creeps up behind me, gently wagging an admonishing finger and saying "OK, go on then, let rip for a few paragraphs or ten minutes of conversation in polite company but, BUT, temper the past with fondless and regret".

Red is naughty but also has a conscience.

Glass by glass he lowers my defences but raises my higher emotions - those feelings that recall the sad times, the painful events and the days gone but not forgotten. My good friend and sneaky adversary is Red. Nowadays Red is no mystery and certainly no enemy. He is like a chattering acquaintance who, by dint of ceaseless gibbering pushes me into revelations that are best left behind the curtain but at the same time need to be said and fortunately leavened by humanity and warmth.

But Malt. That is very different. The bloody stuff just drops me into a deep darkness, blackness, a sour bitterness that is untempered by any warmth or reason. My recall narrows into a dense closed ravine, raising adrenaline fuelled lust for blood and another, "oh If I have to".

Just one more kill. Only one more. The sheer joy of taking a life, long forgotten (or let's be really honest here chaps, long supressed) instincts arise anew in the bleak wasteland brought back by Malt.

My feelings raised by Scotland's finest export are something you would not wish to experience unless you have a fondness for leaping off cliffs, facing a howling mob in the back streets of Derry or feeling a 7.62 round tear into your side. Blood boiling, breathless spine tingling exhaltation. Or indeed, wallowing in flat, emotionless memories that have been utterly sterilised by months of very expensive State-funded psychotherapy.

Fortunately I am alone tonight and the Darkside will only leak out onto the Internet in the form of these ravings.

Have another glass FoxWriter, just one more and this last one might just bring on the blackness of deepsleep that blots out the Darkside.