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Birthday drinks attended only by C-list friends send man into downward spiral

A MAN who recently celebrated his 36th birthday has fallen into depression after it was only attended by people he privately thinks of as ‘the dregs’.

Stephen Malley booked an area in his local pub several weeks in advance and invited all his friends but was devastated when only the shit ones he does not really like arrived.

Malley said: “My list of possible guests had a heading near the bottom that said ‘Maybe not?’. Those are the ones who turned up.

“I tried to shrug it off, but I’ve realised that all the fun, interesting people I know have attracted partners and had kids by this age, and the only ones left are the weirdo loners with nothing better to do on a Friday night.

“And who else is one of those people? Me. I am definitely a C-list guest on someone else’s birthday list. Probably the people I consider A-list.

“So there’s another unwelcome attendee here. The black dog. Depression. And this is the worst one of all, as it hasn’t even arrived with a hastily bought card and a bottle of Echo Falls from the nearest petrol station.”

Pilot, and other professions where everyone used to be shitfaced

DRINKING at work used to be far more socially acceptable. These are some of the jobs it was absolutely fine to do while hammered.

Celebrity chef

From Keith Floyd to Anthony Bourdain, and not forgetting Delia Smith’s legendary half-time rant at a stadium full of Norwich City fans, it used to be de rigueur for TV chefs to be visibly pissed. Now they’ve all turned into either uber-healthy clean eaters or Gordon Ramsay-style hard man twats who wouldn’t want to tarnish their carefully cultivated image by swilling back the red on camera.

Ad exec

According to veteran ad execs, Mad Men actually played down the incredible amount of drinking, smoking and shagging that took place in the 60s. Nowadays, ad execs arrive at their co-working spaces sipping on a green smoothie and give themselves early heart attacks by obsessively worrying about click-through rates, rather than by imbibing four martinis and 20 fags for lunch every day.

Pilot

Even the most nostalgia-addled, rose-tinted-specs-wearing gammon would probably draw the line at letting a sozzled pisshead fly a passenger jet like they used to in the good old days. Though, judging by the horrifically bumpy landings when you fly Ryanair, you can still get a roughly similar experience.

Journalists

Between having excessively boozy three-hour lunches and popping to the pub every time they had five minutes to spare, it’s surprising that journalists had a moment to actually report any news back in the day. Modern times have caught up with the profession and it’s now frowned upon to be obviously plastered, but judging by some of the swill that comes from the keyboards of many British columnists, they were better when they were allowed to be three sheets to the wind.

Politicians

Pretty much every MP who sat in the House before 1979 was half drunk for their entire career, and incapable of making a rational decision post-lunchtime. In fact, it is alleged that Prime Minister’s Questions moved from its traditional 3pm slot to midday so that there was more chance of everyone involved being sober. However, given that PMQs is rowdier and more belligerent than the roughest pub on a Saturday night, it doesn’t seem to have made much difference.

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