30 July 2025

Who’s getting lucky at parties these days?

Not me.

Photo by Stephanie Cardon/Millennium Images

I went to a party the other day. Big deal, you say. I bet you do. I bet your summers are nothing but a long continuous run of endless parties. You lot, with all your friends and that. Anyway, for me, this was kind of a big deal. It was my first in months, and, as I often do at parties, I decided I had to leave early because I feared I was on the verge of making a fool of myself. And that, I think, is part of the fun: how far can you go before you do or say something unwise?

A couple of years ago I went to a party where I noticed an attractive woman wearing an enormous straw hat so I went up to her and asked if I could borrow it. When you see an attractive woman at a party with an enormous straw hat, which is artfully frayed at the edges, you have to ask her if you can pose with it for a bit. I don’t make the rules.

Anyway, she didn’t mind and we became friends, although I noticed her husband’s knuckles whitening. Later on, a mutual friend told me it would probably be best for my health if I never spoke to her again.

The party I went to the other day happened to be at the same venue, and I must confess I was rather looking forward to seeing her again, especially if she was going to tell me that her husband, alas, had not been able to make it. I would have felt a little awkward in his presence, even though my intentions were – and are – entirely honourable. What kind of person do you think I am?

The scene for the party was a friend’s place in the middle of nowhere in Sussex, which you can either get to on the bus cheaply but only after a few hours, or much more quickly by train to Lewes, followed by a devastatingly expensive cab. Because of a huge miscalculation about when I was going to be paid, I chose the latter option. I am ruing the decision somewhat and realise I am going to have to bite the bullet and borrow some money off my brother for the rest of the month.

Back to the party. My friend’s country estate is a large, modernist cuboid of a building surrounded by absolutely lovely and secluded countryside. I thought the place gave off Bond-villain vibes but my friend Ben thought otherwise. “Fuck me,” he said to our host, “you didn’t tell me you were a drug dealer.” (For the record, he is not a drug dealer.)

The evening was warm, and they have a patio as well as half an acre of meadow, so I sat outside at a table with a glass of wine and got stung by a wasp. This happens to me about once every ten years, and I can’t say I like it any more than I ever did. On the Mankoski Pain Scale, I’d rate being stung by a wasp as somewhere between a three (“annoying enough to be distracting”) and a four (“can be ignored if you are really involved in your work”), but it really feels like a six (“can’t be ignored for any length of time”) because for a while it’s all you can think of.

This was near the beginning of the party, when people are politely introducing each other, so when someone met me I would have to say, “I can’t shake your hand because I’ve just been stung by a wasp,” before forgetting their name. After a while, I tired of saying this so borrowed a great colloquialism I learned from Viz magazine and started saying I’d been stang off of a wasp instead. “I thought you said he was a writer,” someone murmured.

The only way to deaden the pain, I decided, was through alcohol and it worked, I suppose, and what with my pain management and looking around for Mrs Strawhat the evening passed enjoyably enough. But I was distracted, and though it was a balmy evening in the countryside – there really aren’t many better ways to spend your time – I wasn’t quite feeling the magic.

I realised, launching into another anecdote from my rich and varied life at a complete stranger, that maybe it was approaching that time of the evening when it was best that I left. Two years ago, sat with some members of a local choir around a firepit, I was invited to begin the rhyme “London’s Burning”. But I thought they meant the Clash song of the same name, which has a very different mood to it. Complete waste of an excellent Joe Strummer impersonation. I didn’t want to get into that kind of situation again, but then how was I to know at the time? Could have happened to anyone.

My friend S— and his wife were going to Lewes Station in a cab, so I offered to contribute to the cost and join them. Wisely, I had bought a day return ticket to Lewes in case I didn’t get lucky. I’m now trying to remember when I last got lucky at a party. (I use the phrase in its more vulgar sense.) Do I really have to go back to 1978, when I got off with Jessica Gibson, the most beautiful girl in the room, shortly before I was sick everywhere and had to be picked up by my father? (And I mean “everywhere”, including at every traffic light between Notting Hill Gate and East Finchley.)

No, I don’t get lucky at parties these days. I just get stang off of a wasp.

[See also: Donald Trump, the king of Scotland]