The uninvited guest

It’s not something you do when you’re sober is it – walk around the side of a house and look underneath the half shut blinds. It seems there’s nothing quite as hypnotic as the sound of guitars blasting and drunkards whaling when you’re walking home from a night out. It’s like a magnet which draws you in – regardless of gates and vehicles for obstacles. I have no doubt what I would have done had I been caught too. I would have run for the hills like a burglar who’d got the lot.

But the allure of the late night party is all encompassing. You convince yourself that you knew their cousin or you’re friends with the man that put in their alarm. The common ground is endless once the house owner gives you a fair trial. Lenient owners will often agree with you. ‘Ah you know Kevin who put in the alarm? Marie he knows Kevin who put in the alarm. Get him a can of Carlsburg there.’

I’ve had some incredibly ridiculous conversations at these sorts of parties which never seem to happen under normal conditions. Like 1990s formula 1 racing, Harvey Keitel films or whether or not David Connolly played up front for Wolves with Robbie Keane. There’s always a trivia buff at these gatherings it seems - whose useless knowledge is otherwise redundant normally. Often, when you play back the arguments which take place you realise it was him that had brought up the Jos Verstappen pit-stop fire in 1994 so he probably did know what team he was driving for at the time.

We all have guilty pleasures like eating Liga or making 100s of prank calls but there’s something about the late night party which makes it both the greatest and most illustrious guilty pleasure of them all for me.

There have been quite a few shindigs which I’ve rambled across whilst plastered and I have often wondered what the etiquette is. At the time I’m always convinced ‘it’s what they would have wanted’ when I loiter outside a house for hours. I tell myself if I was hosting a party I’d want nothing more than passing drunken traffic calling in for a chat and a free drink.

But it’s not really what they want is it? In the cold light of day I now know it’s not ‘what they would have wanted’ and if anything I should be reported.