LAD culture was all the rage in the 90s, but it was harder being a lad than you might expect. Take our quiz and see if you didn’t quite live up to the Loaded ideal.
What were you wearing?
A) All the lad fashions of the time – Ellesse, Fila, pristine Reebok Classics.
B) I had an Adidas tracksuit top, but I just looked like a swimming instructor.
Did you sleep with a lot of women?
A) Yeah. I pulled pretty frequently when I went clubbing. And quite a few of them bore more than a passing resemblance to the Loaded-approved babes of the era: Kathy Lloyd, Kelly Brook, Lucy Pinder.
B) Just my girlfriend. Until she dumped me, signalling the start of a two-year ‘dry spell’. Still, all those FHM swimsuit pictures of Kirsty Gallacher served a purpose during those barren times.
I bet you were really into football, right?
A) Totally, me and my mates were always going to games.
B) Totally. I watched every episode of Fantasy Football League with Frank Skinner and Cambridge Footlights alumnus David Baddiel. Working class culture doesn’t get much more authentic than that.
Did you get into dodgy but hilarious scrapes, like in the classic lad hooligan movie The Football Factory?
A) Ha, I did get off with this woman whose boyfriend was in the Paras. I was shitting myself. Managed to end it amicably without getting my head kicked in.
B) I once threw up all over myself in a pub and had to go home. It was disgusting and really embarrassing. Does that count?
Did you do a lot of drugs?
A) A fair bit. Mainly recreational stuff. Speed, coke, a lot of Es.
B) The small town in Wiltshire where I lived wasn’t exactly awash with class As but you could spend £60 on four White Doves containing so little MDMA you’d get a similar mellow high off a mug of Horlicks. So our main drug of choice was ‘lager’.
What was a typical lads’ night out like?
A) A continental lager-fuelled odyssey of banter and chat-ups in trendy bars and nightclubs. With end-of-night hi-jinks like Connor chatting up a policewoman. Classic.
B) Sitting in the same regional pub, with the same male mates, talking about work. It wasn’t qualitatively any different to what the puce-faced, 50-something borderline alcoholics at the bar were doing. So really I didn’t need to be a lad at all.
Did you read the lads’ magazines?
A) Yeah, for the babes and fashion. Mainly I was out getting pissed though.
B) Yeah, mainly I read the magazines instead of going out getting pissed. To this day I’m weirdly knowledgeable about ‘lad’ things I’ll never do, like how to fight a timber wolf to the death and driving a Challenger 2 tank.
Results
Mostly As: You really lived the lad lifestyle! You must have been one of the tiny 0.0001 per cent of the population who was a coked-up middle class media wanker droning on about f**king Arsenal.
Mostly Bs: You had the authentic lad experience. It was a lot shitter than nostalgic lads will ever admit and all you’ve got to show for it is a load of extremely mediocre CDs by Oasis and The Farm.
