Clubbed Goers

What a night.  Utterly terrifying.  For all concerned.

Well, it is a Stag weekend, isn’t it?  You’d expect a bit of revelry.  Some high jinks.  I don’t think it was what Illfracombe’s only nightclub expected.

I began to suspect we were in for an interesting night when we started negotiating with the barmaid over the house cocktail.  In my experience, you might as well just lie down on the floor and save yourself the trouble of falling over as soon as you jump on the Cocktail Caravan.  There’s no way back.  It’s only going to get messy.  Yet here we were haggling over the cost and concentration of the Devon Dirty Digger.  We succeeded in halving the price and doubling the strength.  Of course, success is an entirely objective concept.  Our prize was a bucketful of lime green liquid.  Now I think there are all sorts of things that shouldn’t go together: Banknotes and Washing machines, Eggs and Pockets, Slippers and Swamps.  I think it’s also self-evident that any combination of Alcohol and Buckets is asking for trouble.  Likewise with Green and Liquid.  It’s never, ever, going to be good.

I spilt a drop from my pail and watched it burn a hole through my shoe.  The others finished theirs with gusto, failing to notice their smouldering sleeves as they wiped their lips.  It unleashed monsters.  What little social grace and elegance we possessed simply wilted in the fumes.  Tact and decorum ran screaming through the door.  If there was one consolation, it was that those virtues were already strangers to this North Devon venue and most of the revellers had no honourable intentions for the night, even if their pace was a little slower.

I watched in horror as the party lurched towards the unsuspecting females nearby determined to engage them in some jovial banter. 

Now, don’t get me wrong.  At heart, these are good and faithful chaps and meaning no harm, seeking nothing more than a good night out and expecting only a shared sense of fun.  Indeed, as soon as the boyfriends appeared, as inevitably they did within moments, my fellow stags retreated full of apologies and explanation.  But the clear air of inebriation, the obvious lack of intent and glaring lack of capability, did little to pacify these slighted lovers.  In fact more than once, the only factor preventing an outbreak of fisty-cuffs was our superior numbers.  Even bruised peacocks can still count and, to an outsider at least, we represented a formidable platoon.

The Best Man, bless him, revealed himself as a creature of cunning.  He had only pretended to sink his gallon of green goo in order to keep watch over his ward.  He and I, rapidly sobering up, attempted to shepherd our band of playful profligates out of harm’s way.  But they’d already moved on.  On to the dance floor.

Marvin was on his back.  I feared the worse.  Then I saw Our Stag start to spin him by his foot.  It was assisted break-dancing.  In a fashion.  Clearly not a good fashion or one likely to catch on.  Thankfully.  Marvin’s interpretation did make it look rather like an unfortunate medical condition. 

They bored quickly and embarked on what can only be described a Gay Waltz.  Clinging tightly to each other and alternating gender roles, they rampaged across the floor as if possessed by the combined spirits of Julian Clary and a bulldog.  Cheek to cheek and careering blindly around.  If it hadn’t been so brutal, it might have looked quite sweet.  There was clearly a lot of something going on between them.

Now, there is a point when one believes that it can’t get any worse.  That point came.  And went.  The waltz transmogrified into The Net of Love.  Or, I’d suggest, more accurately the Chain of Chaos.  I begged quietly to leave.  To emigrate.  For plastic surgery.

Our heroes reeled wildly around, enveloping anyone in their way in a rough Farmer’s in the Den sort of way.  It didn’t seem to matter who it was, their aim was indiscriminate though their successes favoured the less the mobile/ more intoxicated targets.   They managed to trap eight unsuspecting dancers in one audacious manoeuvre that required a wide sweeping curve around half a dozen disgruntled couples. 

Then something unexpected happened: a few sports playfully entered into the spirit of the Net.  After so much abuse and rejection this was quite a shock.  In fact it was so unsettling that it wrong-footed the group - quite something when one considered the rhythm and physics-defying choreography that dominated the dance floor for so long.

With the level of debauchery equalising across the club-goers, it was clearly time to leave.

Comments

[Jon]

What a fantastic account of a very memorable evening. Its a good job you were there to form an acurate account of the nights events. xoxox

[Carlton]

Exactly as it happened. Point by point.

I'll never ever be going back...

Don't ever do it again. ;-)

c