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Someone lamented on Twitter recently that house parties have fallen out of fashion.
Not if you’re a parent, they haven’t. Why spend £80 plus cab fare to SE22 on a childminder when you can invite your friends chez vous instead? Hide the dirty dishes in the microwave, crank up the Sonos, get the kitchen disco started and see how many times Dave can play ‘Promised Land’ before his wife passes out at 2am. Everybody loves a house party.
There’s something especially flattering about being admitted into someone’s inner sanctum, because the guest list is implicitly more elite. While you could, at a push, tolerate your friend’s bellend of a partner in a function suite, it would be unbearable to do so in your home. Only your faves get to party on the La Redoute berber rug.
While I’ve never met a house party I don’t like, I do have a strong preference for spontaneous ones. This is because they negate that peculiarly London custom of offering to ‘bring something’. There are two sorts of house guests: those who feel the need to hand-craft a pavlova, buy five different types of cheese and a £30 bottle of Barons de Rothschild Lafite to be worthy of entry, and those who take their shoes off and get stuck in. Actually, I don’t even take my shoes off. As for the wine… let’s just say I’m the guest who prays the host doesn’t open mine first, when everyone is sober.
Which isn’t to say food isn’t important at a house party. It really is. Freed from the financial constraints of a double gin and tonic costing £12.60 in a pub, most self-respecting house guests will pour such generous measures from your Sipsmith that they are rendered comatose earlier than is seemly. This is where the crisps come in. Or better still, the microwave chips. Tip enough carbs down their throat and they’ll revive eventually. That’s my tip for the party season. And if you want a guest to leave? Bore them with the fact that gin costs 514 per cent more in pubs than in supermarkets. You’re welcome.
Adorable or ad nauseam
I swear to God they could have Olivia Colman clutching a kitten, a puppy, a baby llama and newborn twins in matching Santa suits, and an accompanying soundtrack of Greta Thunberg covering Mariah’s ‘All I Want for Christmas’, and some people would still find fault with the John Lewis Christmas ad. So the humans are seeking to curb the dragon’s natural animal instinct to breathe fire? And we’re supposed to find this touching? So flame-shaming is acceptable in 2019? Guys. It’s a Christmas ad. Excitable Edgar isn’t real. Although it does make a very good porn star name.
Advent of the silly season
Never mind Black Friday: the greatest marketing triumph of the decade is surely the luxury Advent calendar. What, your partner won’t be presenting you with 24 doors’ worth of Jo Malone/Diptyque/Net-A-Porter goodies? They clearly don’t love you. I’m not saying Advent calendars are for kids — any adult who has time or inclination to open a small cardboard door every morning in December for 24 days straight will only get respect from me — but I am saying that at the top end of the scale, things are getting silly. Tip: if you’ve got a spare £100k to drop on Tiffany’s advent calendar, you might want to consider donating to one of the city’s many Christmas charity appeals as well.
