Stags and Dens, and self-determination

It's a fair few years since I went to a stag do (probably not thirty, but not that far off), but as our mates Jamie and Lise are getting hitched immediately prior to setting sail for a new life in Spain, and therefore opportunities to socialise with either or both of them will shortly be severely curtailed, when I learnt that one of the Players was organising a surprise stag do for him at the Frog and Bucket the decision to attend was a no-brainer (even though it clashed with a "girls' weekend").

We were due to meet at the Dry Bar at 7pm, where Jamie would arrive on the pretext of having a quick drink before catching a train for a quiet night watching DVDs at a mate's house, to find around 20 of his friends waiting to drag him off for a completely different sort of night. I'd never been to the Dry Bar so I hopped a taxi. The driver, who gave every appearance of never having heard of the Dry Bar, dropped me off on Oldham Street outside an anonymous building. Armed with the knowledge that said bar was #28 on the street, and noticing the shop opposite was #51, I headed off confidently in the direction of Piccadilly, looking for an even numbered door on my side to give me some new bearings. When I reached #14 I backtracked, counting doorways, and found myself back where I started. Maybe the cabbie was more clued up than I'd imagined.

One friendly face was visible behind the double doors (Hi Bon!) so I grabbed a pint and settled in to await further arrivals. Those of the male members of the Players who could make it drifted in by ones and twos until we received a text message that Jamie was on his way. The ruse worked perfectly, his normally bemused look giving way to total surprise as he rounded to corner to cheers and applause. After another quick lemonade we set off for the Frog and Bucket.

I'm not normally one to criticise (*cough*) so I should probably just say the comedy was appalling. Luckily that's not why we went - at least not for the sort on stage. The craic among the group was way funnier. The first of three acts seemed to think all he had to do was say "nobhead" a few times, interspersed with other colourful language, and we'd all fall about laughing. Halfway through his act I glanced around our group. Almost to a man we were all sat there with our arms folded, staring him down and daring him to make us laugh. I was glad it wasn't just me. He didn't raise a single chuckle during his entire act, even though a group of young ladies on a hen night, or birthday party, seemed to think it all pant-wettingly funny, and literally fell about in their seats screaming and giggling fit to bust. Maybe it was all much funnier if you were pissed. Or an airhead.

The woman who was on second raised the bar a little, but you still wouldn't have been able to limbo under it. Her delivery was good (an Irish accent always helps) but her material weak and predictable at best. I saw her best gag coming several minutes before she finally got to the punchline.

After all that we had great expectations of the "headline act," but he proved to be almost a rerun of the first guy only with more charisma. The compère was funny though. Or at least it seemed funny at the time. Thinking back over what he said (wondering whether to repeat the intercourse here and deciding against it) it wasn't especially funny, but at the time I laughed until tears rolled down my cheeks. I've read that most comedy arises when one group of people is made to feel superior to another, and that was certainly true of this situation, as Jamie had the piss ripped mercilessly from him. Maybe the fact that each of us in Jamie's vicinity knew at some gut level we were only a glance away from being subjected to some of the same, which could have given it more of an edge. All in all, it epitomised the phrase: "you had to be there."

Sometime between the first and second act, the Stag Night Organiser came around with a tray of shots. Now I'm not the biggest fan of shots at the best of times, but the truth is, I've been feeling like shit for the last three days and have been off work with it. Sore throat, congestion, cough, splitting headache, fever and a general lack of energy. It was an act of monumental selflessness to attend the stag do in the first place (*cough*) and I certainly didn't intend to make things worse by getting off my face.

So I selected the smallest shot available, and when the toast was made I touched the glass to my lips and set it down on the table, out of sight among the menus. After the second act one of my table-mates (names omitted to protect self-esteem) noticed the unconsumed shot.

TM: Hey! You didn't drink your shot!
Me: I know. I didn't want it in the first place.
TM: Well I didn't want mine, but I drank it.

I looked pityingly at him as he bemoaned his lack of... whatever it was that allowed me to ignore the shot and the herd behaviour that surrounded it.

Sometime later I heard the Organiser ask the bloke next to him to go around and collect fivers from everyone for another round of shots. TM reached into his wallet immediately and produced a crisp fiver.

Bloke: John?
Me: No thanks.
Bloke: (with theatrical inflection) I don't think it's optional!
Me: Isn't it?

I locked eyes with the bloke until he moved away to the next Stagger.

TM: You've done it again! How do you do that? I didn't want another shot...

What made it worse for the guy was the shot, when it arrived, was a double scotch. Only from the smell of it, it had been distilled from kerosene rather than the more usual substrate. But I'm not smug. Well, not very.