Eight Ace

"Eight Ace" is a comic strip in "Viz" magazine that charts the exploits of the eponymous protagonist Octavius Tinsworth Federidge Ace,or "Eight Ace" for short. He is a miserable, foul-mouthed, unclean alcoholic, named after the quantity and brand of lager which rules his life and prevents his battle-axe wife from ever letting him into their ramshackle home, in which she brings up their huge number of children on the poverty line.

Eight cans of Ace Lager cost £1.49 from Mr Patel's local 24-hour nano-mart, where the friendly shopkeeper often makes a futile attempt to invite Mr Ace to purchase non-alcoholic items, such as a comb or a bin liner, but to no avail. Each story sees Eight Ace given £1.49, or just enough money to bring his funds to that sum, by his estranged wife to buy something vital for his 'bairns' (the Geordie dialect word for children, and used across north britain) like medicine, or something needed for school or just food for their evening meal. The story sees Eight Ace telling himself, in a mildly inebriated manner, that this time he won't buy his favourite lager but will get the item his wife has demanded. Ironically, his wife is not very good with money herself and just as selfish. In "Viz" 166 (June 2007), she uses the money for adapting the family home to cater for the needs of one of her children (who has a disability) on a new plasma screen television which Eight drunkenly damages. This same strip establishes that one of Ace's young sons is named "Half" and another is named "Four".

Eight Ace maintains his self-instruction right up to arriving at the store - and then orders Eight Ace instead. He drinks each can one by one at great speed while loudly chastising himself for weakening again, and usually comes to a sticky end when he returns to his wife; often this is another night in a leaking shed, sleeping off the alcohol in a puddle of his own urine. He is frequently drawn in the act of urination, his (very small) penis quite visible.

Eight Ace is often threatening to 'bray' (Geordie for 'beat', but a fairly common word in Yorkshire, too) his wife or bairns or both. Ace's wife has been shown hitting or even stabbing him, but he has never to date actually been shown hitting anyone. He lives in a shed in his family's front garden, as his wife refuses to let him into the house. He wears the trousers of a jogging suit but never exercises. He also wears carpet slippers, apparently not owning a pair of proper shoes.

Curiously - as has been brought up by a number of readers of "Viz" in the letter's page - £1.49 is extremely cheap for eight cans of lager. This is because Federation Ace is an extremely cheap, low quality lager, 3% ABV [ [http://beerme.com/breweries/uk/tw/1696.shtml Beer Me! — Federation Brewery — Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, United Kingdom ] ] , although the price may be under-exaggerated slightly for comic effect. Part of this apparent discreptency also results from the fact that the amount for the Ace has never been changed since the strip's introduction in 1988, when £1.49 would have been a more reasonable (albeit still very cheap) amount for eight cans.

Often Eight has actually succeeded in giving up the Ace, only to revert back to drinking it at the end of the strip. In one episode he turns to the local vicar for help, and soon he has overcome his urges. At the end of the strip, the vicar gives Eight £1.49 from the collection plate, which he goes and spends on the Ace, instantly transforming into his old inebriated self.

ee also

Rab C. Nesbitt was a character in a BBC sitcom of the same name who had many similarities to "Eight Ace", including the eternally despairing wife.

References

External links

Flash scan of strip from [http://www.viz.co.uk/ Viz website] :
* [http://www.viz.co.uk/archive_strips/motorised_strips/viztv_popup_8ace.html Eight Ace]