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Five problems that can be solved by five pints

LIFE is full of myriad problems, some bigger than others. Luckily these five can be completely solved by drinking five pints.

Stress

Feeling pressure at work? Are the tensions in your failing marriage becoming unbearable? Despite not being medically proven, five pints of ale, cider or even wine, if you’re hardcore, can temporarily eliminate the sensation of stress. The benefits are short-term though and your hangover will make everything seem ten times worse, but it’s a price worth paying for a couple of stress-free hours.

The burden of excess funds

Ouch. What’s the hot sensation from your wallet? It’s excess money burning a hole in your pocket. Quick, you’d better start splashing out on five pints before the weight of the notes drags your trousers down in front of the whole pub. If you really need to spend a fortune, buy an independent craft beer that costs shitloads for no apparent reason.

Feeling like a failure

Everyone feels like a failure now and then. Especially people with a life as shit as yours. Your career’s going nowhere, you haven’t achieved your dreams, and let’s not even get into your love life. Drinking five pints is an easy and fun goal to achieve, though. And by accomplishing it you can pretend it’s the start of turning your life around and not the beginning of an addiction.

Existential angst

Paralysed by a constant, nagging dread? Daren’t look at the news because everything’s so grim? Turn to the one thing in the world that’s guaranteed to take the edge off: five pints. By the time you’ve finished, the terrifying questions surrounding your existence will be replaced by more fun ones like ‘Should I jump over that bollard?’ and ‘Shall I have another pint?’ As with all drunken questions, the answer is ‘yes’.

Being sober

Bad things tend to happen when you’re sober. Things like divorces and root canals and going to work. It’s an overall troubling state, which is why people regularly try to escape from it by getting drunk. Five pints is the perfect amount to consume because it gets you comfortably pissed but won’t completely ruin your body come the next morning. So drink up.

The teenage first-timer's guide to rolling a spliff

AS a 19-year-old fresher who’s bought weed twice, Jack Browne is an expert at rolling spliffs and it often only takes three goes. Here he talks you through it.

First, assemble your kit. Big Rizlas. Three packs of little Rizlas in case you have to stick three together. Roach cardboard. Artist’s knife and cutting board. Sellotape.

Second, lay the Rizla out reverentially and sprinkle your weed, hash or chronic onto it. Don’t put much in so it will last longer. Add tobacco in thick clumps.

Lick the Rizla. Realise you have licked the non-gummy bit of the Rizla which is now wet paper and sticking to the other side, only a bit but enough to scatter the contents everywhere. Return to step two.

Lick the Rizla. Try to roll smoothly and evenly so all the tobacco compacts into a cylinder, then neatly seal. This will not go as planned. The tobacco will make a desperate break for freedom and the paper will stick to it. Pick apart and return to step one.

Lick the Rizla. Manage to contain the tobacco, but in a cone of paper with a tiny aperture at one end and wide open at the other. Hold it up proudly and watch the contents fall out. Return to step bloody one.

Lick the Rizla. Form a workable compromise between a cylinder and a cone. Rizla now sticking to your sweaty fingers. Tear off roach, roll between fingers and completely f**k up the paper trying to force it in. Return to step one.

Lick the f**king Rizla. Form a compromise. Try to put the roach in. It falls out. Try again. It falls out, and the Rizla is becoming unstuck. Resort to Sellotape.

Congratulations! Now smoke, discovering as you do so that it’s too tight to draw smoke through without becoming light-headed, and count this as a win.

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