DESIGNATED DRIVER

Do we have designated drivers in England? I mean, do we actually call people who have to refrain from the tipple on account of them having to drive other people home 'designated drivers?' Sound like one of those fishy American terms that tries to obscure the true implications of something to me, like 'vertically challenged'. Whatever the correct nomenclature, this was the fate that befell me the day we decided to visit the wine country just south of Santiago. I suppose I volunteered to be the designated driver because I was feeling particularly gentlemanly that morning. Or maybe because I hadn't had the matutinal coffee I need to think straight on any given day, but it dawned on me pretty much from the moment I put a glass of award winning Viu Manent Malbec to my lips that I had made an appalling mistake. I was driving to VINEYARDS and had opted NOT to drink! What a calamity! What idiocy! Who was to be designated driver that day should have been decided by a particularly edgy game of backgammon or something. Oh well, at least Lu enjoyed several Cab Savs, a secret assemblage of Sauvignon Blanc with a mystery grape (again, award winning), and several other prize wines. And I learnt to spit into one of those wine spitoons. I will never be a designated driver ever again.