10 things to remember for a night on the booze

The following helpful list is brought to you by fond memories of staggering home at 4am, not being able to figure out the use of a door-key and thus having to make the doorstep your bed for the night.

 The following tips aren't in any particular order of importance, just how they came to me.*

10

Always keep track of your friends. It's just possible, when you've sunk quite a few drinks and the alcohol is saying hello to your brain, that you might mistakenly carry on a conversation with a chair or other inanimate object, mistakenly believing it to be your friend. This generally happens when you turn away for just a moment and the friend you were conversing with goes to the bar without informing you. So always watch your friends, it can save you from years of embarrassment and piss-taking.

9

When partaking in the buying of rounds, always make sure that you have the cheapest drinks when you're buying and the most expensive when your friends get out their wallets. While this may make you out to be a cheapskate, just remember you have hours of drinking to get through therefore your money needs to last.

8

That dodgy kebab shop that stays open until 3am is dodgy for a very good reason. Just because you've drunk enough booze to fill the Pacific ocean twice over doesn't mean you are now a super being who is immune to food poisoning. Stay safe, avoid kebabs made with unknown meats and pizzas that have been chucked in an incinerator. There's always bread at home, you can have toast.

7

Alcohol does NOT improve your ability to dance. If you dance like a twat with 2 left feet when you're sober, then chances are excellent that you'll dance like a drunk twat with 2 left feet when you're lashed. Spare your blushes, and possible appearances on YouTube and don't dance at all.

6

Similar to the above point, alcohol does NOT improve your ability to sing. If you sound like a cat being strangled with cheese-wire and having its tail pulled at the same time, then trust me when you're drunk you'll sound 10 times worse and the police may be called to see who's being murdered in the pub. So when the karaoke comes out resist that temptation to jump up and pretend you're a rock star.

5

Beware of beer goggles. This should be really obvious, but sadly even to this very day many people still ignore this advice. You can always be assured that on a night out at least one person will succumb to the power of beer goggles and consequently see someone of the opposite sex as more attractive than they actually are. This then leads to a night of sex (always a good thing), followed by horror and recrimination in the morning as you realise who's home you went back to. The only thing to do then is follow the time-honoured tradition and escape through a kitchen window. So remember, alcohol alters the reality of your perceptions.

4

As a counterpoint to the above point, always hope someone has beer goggles. If you look like me and have a face that could give Freddy Krueger  some seriously fucked up nightmares, then beer goggles are your friend. They are quite possibly one of the few chances you have of getting laid. And if you take somebody to bed at night and wake up alone in the morning you've always got the comforting thought that at least you had sex. So live in hope my fellow freaks.

3

Alcohol does NOT make you a charmer. Just because you're drunk and feeling very eloquent, doesn't mean that your favourite cheesy and shit chat-up lines are suddenly going to work. You may think you're acting all smooth and sexy, but in reality you're just acting like a pervy twat, probably drooling all over and smelling of spilt beer. To save yourself getting a slap, borrow some deodorant, have yourself a wash and buy the object of your affection a drink. That way if you do get knocked back at least it'll be polite and relatively pain-free.

2

Drunk ramblings do NOT impress strangers. When you're drunk you have a tendency to believe that random strangers in a pub both want and need to hear your opinions on every fucking subject you can think of. Since you're drunk, music and politics seem to be the only subjects you can think of to inflict on unsuspecting strangers. And you do so, in excruciating detail, until the poor bastards are so bored and/or traumatised by you that some friendly person has to jump to their rescue. If you do want to vent your opinions, vent at the barman, he's getting paid to be in your presense.

1

No complaining. You've had a great night out, had lots of laughs and drunk various and undoubtedly weird drinks. You've managed to get yourself home and into bed safely, where you can fall unconscious for a few hours. In the morning you'll wake up and feel like a whole troupe of people wearing steel toe capped boots have stopped by in the middle of the night and used your head as an impromptu dance floor. This is your hangover. You may feel the need to cry and whinge all day, but you shouldn't. Why? Because you've paid good money to create this hangover. You know the consequences of having a good night out, yet you willingly go ahead anyhow, therefore you deal with your misery in a dignified way and not complain. The saying "I'm never drinking again!!!" is exempt from this as it is not technically a complaint, it's more a long-standing weekend tradition uttered by almost every person in the drinking world.


*This is a lighthearted, humorous post and should be read as such. Under no circumstances should you harbour any desires to hunt me down and have me killed for any offence you may take from reading this!