#29 Hangovers

Since I've started out on this little collection of 30 escapades there have been a few signs pointing towards me getting a bit old.

I shall present these in bullet point form as that is what old people tend to do:

• After the marathon, it took a good 4 weeks before my knees stopped hurting (Tough Mudder seems to have sorted that out now though)
• My long suffering wife is no longer happy plucking individual grey hairs from my head. She claims she'd rather have a (dashing) grey haired husband than a bald one. Fair point I suppose
• I've gone back to thinking that Simply Red's Stars is one of the greatest albums of all time
• I've caught myself complaining at how kids these days think they're entitled to a free pass and easy rid (In my day we had to work 18 hour days for thruppence ha'penny you know)
• However, most worrying of all of these are the multi-day hangovers

Me and the O-H hydrocarbons have always had a deal. On week nights, the little chaps always get away mostly un-drunk but on weekends, anything goes. In return for my benevolent weekday abstinence from ethanolocide, the little 'cohols and I had a clear and simple arrangement:

One night on the lash = One day feeling shocking afterwards.

It was simple. It was fair. Everybody won.

But oh no no. Not any more. 2 day hangovers are now commonplace. In fact, after my stag do - where last orders were imbibed on the Sunday - I was for some reason punished continually until the following weekend. How is that fair?

In summary, getting old is rubbish.

There is one time of year where I have come to accept and fully expect at least a two day hangover - the annual May Bank Holiday European City Break. So much so that the Tuesday is now an obligatory day of holiday as far as I am concerned. The rules of the trip are simple (the rules of creating the playlist and our drinking games, however, are not. But that's a different story):

A collection of my friends and I descend upon the finest youth hostel available in a pre-selected European city and share our culture with our new found friends over the course of a long weekend. There is no sightseeing. Nothing that could be classed in any way as "cultural". Just an excuse to pretend that we are still fun and wouldn't rather be sat in front of the TV catching up on a week's worth of Neighbours.

This year, we chose Lisbon, and what better place to do challenge #29 Do a row of at least 30 Jagerbombs (I don't have to drink them all myself!)

So the Saturday night began in it's usual fashion - a 4 player game of Canasta with a civilised beer or three. This quickly descended into a 4 player game of ring of fire. This quickly (and quite inexplicably) descended into a 25 person game of 21s with more cans of energy drink than at a Lord of the Rings movie marathon and more bottles of Vodka than at a Russian breakfast.

Those of you that know me and my friends know that we are worryingly well practiced at the game of 21s (numbers must be said in binary; with the digits summed; doubles are triples; triples are doubles; shark attack, shotgun, dead ant, grenade, thumb and freeze masters are all in place; is there a question master?). Unsurprisingly this ended badly for a number of the other players, so our group of 25 had approximately halved by the time we hit the town.

Then it just kind of happened. There was a bar, a very cheap bar, a selection of happy people with a thirst for more energy drinks and subsequently an inevitable tray of 30 Jagerbombs. 

Nope. Nobody drunk in this picture.