It’s Lord Byron’s Birthday. Born in 1788, the club-footed nobleman and poet spent his life laying down rhymes and lapping up as much booze as he could get his hands on. True story: Byron sometimes drank his claret, wine and brandy from a human skull. It’s true. While digging, his gardener happened upon an abnormally large skull that Byron guessed had once “belonged to some jolly monk or friar” from a nearby abbey. So naturally, Byron’s first instinct was to have the skull sent to a silversmith in town to have it polished and mounted it as a drinking cup. I mean, why not? Top quote: “Man, being reasonable, must get drunk; the best of life is but intoxication.”
