Cigarettes and Alcohol: Confessions of a Stag Weekend

by Sloan, Phil

  3] During the 1960’s - a time of hippies and free love – weddings, and therefore the stag do, fell out of favour. Everyone was too busy shagging at orgies and throwing their car keys in at wife swapping parties. Why bother getting married or going out on the lash, while a ‘wall to wall shag-a-thon’ was taking place everywhere. Get taters deep and forget all that heavy commitment stuff man. Insert a peace sign here and go drop a couple of tabs of acid while watching Easy Rider on DVD to get the full 60’s space kid effect.

  4] The seventies were a dark dull time with three day weeks, power cuts and white dogs muck. The stag do did come briefly back into vogue with groups of badly dressed men wobbling about town, dressed from head to foot in man-made fibres, desperately searching for a public house that would do a ‘lock in’ beyond the depressingly early closing time of just 11 o’clock at night! Many were found in a local park necking Watneys Party Sevens early in the morning just to carry on the festivities after hours. That was about it for the seventies stag, depressing really.

  5] With the huge popularity of the home video machine in the early eighties, the interest in ‘stag do’s’ again took a bit of a nose dive. Why go out when you could sit indoors and watch the latest Chuck Norris action flick in the privacy of your own home? Porn was freely available for just three quid a night rental, with the classic Electric Blue soft porn range (remember the theme tune? Of course you do you sex addicted, skin flick watching, over forty year old). Horror films were ten a penny, providing excellent levels of sex and violence that you just did not see on the three channels of terrestrial TV. What was great about renting a VHS tape from the local video shop was that you knew when something exciting was going to happen in the film as the picture would start to go all fuzzy and grainy just before a decent scene. You could bet that a flash of tit (even bush if you were really lucky) or a cool explosion and/or beheading was coming your way as soon as the screen went all moody. This was caused by people pausing then rewinding the film over and over again to re-watch their favourite bits of the movie. That was all part of the charm of home video in the eighties, as a rule the grainier the picture, the better the movie. The fact that the top loading video player machines were the size of a fridge and the tapes were as big as a house brick was totally immaterial, you could watch what you liked, when you liked. Well that was until the whole ‘Video Nasties’ episode which took a lot of the decent hard core violent horror films off the shelves of your local video emporium. What a bunch of bloody killjoys. What on earth is wrong with wanting to watch ‘Skull Fucking Acid Dropping Killer Nazi Zombies from Cheam’ anyway? What a man chooses to view in the privacy of his own house with a box of tissues is his own affair.

  Later in the decade of ‘day-glo’ the stag do finally returned to its rightful place in the spotlight, with the rise of the YUPPIES (Young Upwardly-mobile Professional PIE-eaters) and the DINKY’s (Dual Income No Kids Yet) brigade who had tons of DI (Disposable Income) in their sky rockets (pockets). If they were not earning huge amounts of ‘cash to splash’ by working up in the City, dealing stocks or other dodgy stuff then that was not a problem. Just get a credit card and run up vast sums of debt you will never repay just to enable you to ‘live the dream.’ Thatcher’s Britain was full of money grabbing tossers downing huge bottles of Champagne and snorting half of Colombia’s finest illegal export up their beaks. With the advent of big gaudy ostentatious weddings, the stag event finally came of age. Paintballing and days at race circuits, bombing round in flash jam jars, were then followed by reservoirs of over-priced booze being drunk. The more expensive something was in the 80’s the better. Designer labels took off and excessive excess was applauded everywhere. ‘Stagging’ as it is now known was born and just one day was not enough, it had to be a full weekend of debauchery. Major city centres across the UK were suddenly awash with big groups of lads wearing ‘Frankie Says..’ tee shirts and trendy jeans, getting right on it. They had ‘Loads-a-money!’ and were spending it on birds, booze and bugle. Dripping with designer clothes, sovereign rings and gold chains, carrying a big wedge of fifty pound notes, you could tell the YUPPIE stag as he acted like a massive cock, full of his own self-importance. However they did raise the bar for a decent stag do, so I say ‘good work fella’. Without the dinosaurs of the 1980’s the stag weekend would not have been re-invented and this book would now be full of blank pages (some might argue this would be the better option!) The gloves were off and during the weekend anything went. By the way, the first recorded ‘stag handcuffed to a lap post with no trousers on’ incident happened in 1985 in Newcastle.

  BIG DISCLAIMER: This whole chapter has no historical accuracy or truth in it whatsoever, especially the ‘Jack the Ripper’ part, which really is a load of steaming horse dung. Apologies but if you wanted a factual history book you should have bought one. They’re in your local book store under B for Boredom.

  Chapter Sixteen: The Cursed Saturday Night in Edinburgh

  We’ve made a schoolboy error. We’ve all dropped a massive bollock and returned to the guest house to freshen up for the big Saturday night in Edinburgh.

  On a stag weekend, stopping your alcohol intake is the very worst thing you can do. You’ve got to maintain a steady drinking pace the whole time. Drink through the peaks and troughs that a booze infused day throws at your body, almost like being put on a drip at the hospital.

  If you cease the beer, smokes and illegals being taken on board even for a few minutes, you are going to drop like an aeroplane when one of the engines blows. Sooner or later my friend you are coming down hard!

  But stop we do and find our way back to base camp. The guest house is a three storey terrace in a quiet street. The top floor is where the family live and the lower two floors are where the five guest rooms are. Four lads are in the biggest room then there are two rooms of three and another two rooms of two. Well there were fourteen of us this morning all looking bright and breezy but we’ve lost two so far in the great pyramid disaster.

  Along the corridors in the guest house are big potted plants and pictures of Edinburgh through the ages line the walls. We all disappear into our rooms to get ready and agree to hook up in an hour to hit the town.

  However some fall for the old ‘just a few minutes of power nap will sort me right out’ theory. Bad move as they end up deep asleep never to awake until the next morning and miss all the fun.

  Amnesty Boy is sharing a room with Mule who has had a lie down and is now totally out for the count. There is no waking him up so Amnesty does the only sane thing you can do in that situation and stitches him up like a right kipper.

  He goes down to reception to see if they have any shoe polish that he can borrow as he wants his boots to shine to catch the eyes of the ladies. The owner of the guest house is only too pleased to lend him some, but that polish is ending up nowhere near any shoe leather, that’s for sure.

  Amnesty goes back up to the room where Mule is snoring away like a good ‘un. He smears a load of polish all over his fingers while he sleeps on. Then Amnesty starts tickling Mules nose who then wipes his polish smothered hands all over his own boat race. Within seconds his whole face is covered in the stuff and he now looks like a crap camouflaged Rambo.

  Amnesty rushes across to our room to show us his handiwork. It is a work of art. The polish is even all up his nose now, as he must have been having a cheeky pick while he’s been fast a kip. We try not to laugh too much and wake the sad bloke up. Let him be, he can’t take the pace of ‘the in crowd’.

  That’s one more casualty added to the two guys in casualty so the posse is down to eleven men now. We start knocking on the other rooms so we can make tracks into the city. Lads start to appear, ready for action but in various states of health. Some look well sorted after a quick splash slash and dash.

  Others still look a bit pasty with the beer sweats and red veiny eyes that suggest that they may well be struggling to keep up the drinking pace. Then there are the ones chemically enhanced by ‘Class A’
substances who have pupils the size of pin heads while talking utter tosh at one hundred miles an hour, but they are definitely ready to go back into battle.

  We knock on one room but the two guys (Kid K & Kid N) inside refuse to answer. They just cannot face chucking any more ale down their sheep and goats (throats) today. We know that they can hear us shouting abuse about them being wimpy let downs and they know that we know they can hear us, but they will not be intimidated into coming back out on the piss again.

  They instantly gain the new nick names of Light and Weight. We never could tell which one was which, so we ended up calling them Lightweight 1 and Lightweight 2. In fairness the pair of them had recently had babies with their wives and only came on the stag do to get a decent couple of nights sleep away from the nagging Mrs and the endless supply of milky baby sick that would end up all over their designer threads.

  So that is just nine of us heading out for a night of hard stagging without an acting stag because he is still up at the hospital with a cattle trucked gob.

  With his wired up jaw he will be only able to open his mouth a few centimetres and it will look like a letter being shoved into a post box when eating his new all flat diet consisting of poppadum’s, crisps and pizza’s.

  We leave the guest house saying a fond goodnight to the owner who is on reception. He has on the moodiest Irish jig (wig]) I have ever seen in my entire life. The colour of his rug does not even match the small remaining wisps of his natural hair poking out from underneath his very crap Syrup of Figs (wig).

  What the fuck is the point of wearing ‘an oil rig’ (wig)? Just shave the lot off and man up!

  Apart from his love of wearing half a dead cat on his head, he’s a good bloke and tells us about a cheap boozer up the road that he assures us will be full of top quality women. Hopefully his eye for the ladies is not as poor as his selection of fake hair pieces.

  We decide to pop our head around the pub’s door as it’s on our way into town anyway. However not one hundred yards further down the road, Burke somehow manages to walk straight into a lamp post. Believe me this took some doing as he was reeling about from side to side and was finding it hard to walk in anything even remotely resembling a straight line at the time.

  With a massive CLANG! noise, he goes down like a ton of elephant shit being dropped. Village rushes over to pick him up and already a huge bump the size of an over-sized egg has come up on his forehead. This does not look good for Burke. If he manages to avoid a minor concussion we are all going to be amazed.

  We escort him back to his room and all know that he is out of the game as well. Another one bites the dust.

  It’s like our night has a major Tutankhamen type curse on it or some such. There are just eight of us left now but we will make every pint count and compensate for the short fall in our ranks.

  We find the drinking establishment that our follically challenged, Farmers Pig (wig) wearing, new best mate has recommended and horror of horrors there’s a Karaoke Night on.

  I am not sure exactly what Karaoke actually means but I am convinced that it must be ‘shit singers singing shit songs shitly.’ My advice to anyone is not to enter any premises that hold these truly ear torturing tedious nights. No good will come of it, believe me.

  As we walk up to the door someone is murdering the tune of some already agonisingly awful song so we decide to avoid the place and go find somewhere else to knock back our quota of grog.

  We need to get some solids on board. Generally ‘eating is cheating’ on a staggie but it was now nine at night, after heavy hours on the beer we needed a gut full of nosh or we would be in all sorts of bother later on.

  Luckily we spot an Indian restaurant up ahead so we dart in for some top curried food.

  The owner of the place did not exactly welcome us eight noisy English tossers with open arms, but he led us to a big table out back, well away from his other punters where we couldn’t offend anyone.

  We ordered up some scran and yet more booze and inevitably the chat pretty soon turned nonsensical:

  “PISSED UP CONVERSATION #3:

  Kid M: Are we ever going to get THE SUN TATT on the market and make our fortune?

  Kid L: Remind me of this sure fire money winner again. We always chat about this when I am out of my box and can’t remember the P of A (Plan of Action)

  Kid M: THE SUN TATT. It’s a piece of plastic cut into cool shapes, like a beer bottle shape for instance. You then stick the plastic on your arm when you sun bathe. Let the currant bun [sun] give you the perfect peter pan [tan] and you then remove THE SUN TATT leaving that part of your skin un-tanned but in the shape of a beer bottle.

  Kid L: Genius bro. You could have anything you wanted tattooed on your arms, legs or chest, without all the pain and aggro of a real tatt. Amazing!

  Kid M: You could cut names into the designs, so your SUN TATT could read Mum or whatever. You could sell swallows or little heart shaped bits of plastic. They would look right classy unlike real tattoos.

  Kid L: Obviously, there’s no need for laser treatment when you want to get rid of your SUN TATT either. You just go back out in the sunshine and you are sorted. A winner, let’s do it.

  Kid M: I’ve even got the advertising jingle all worked out. SUN TATT, SUN TATT, STICK IT UP YOUR BUM TATT. It will be great. Anyone on holiday is going to buy hundreds of these things for sure.

  Kid L: Yeah the kids are going to dig this. We’re going to make millions and get out of the shitty rat race. Tattoos for anyone, without the need for ink or needles. Result. I’m going to patent this as soon as we get home.”

  Obviously he didn’t. He’s still as skint as the rest of us! END OF CONVERSATION…..

  Halfway through the meal I had to dart out for a piss. ‘Breaking the seal’ is never a good idea when out on a session. Visit the lavvy once and from then on you’ve got to have a slash every ten minutes to empty your belly of pissy beer.

  It was a nightmare getting the old todger out of my fly as I had a brand new pair of 501’s on and it took ages of faffing about getting the buttons undone. When I got back to the table there was no-one there, just loads of plates of half-eaten food and half-drunk pints of beer.

  The owner was standing at the deserted table with a phone in his hands saying, ‘I’m calling the police. Your friends have all run out without paying so unless you have the money to cover the bill, there is going to be trouble.’

  ‘I haven’t got enough cash on me mate. It’s my stag do. I do have a credit card back at the guest house we are staying at. I’ll nip back and get it.’ I reply.

  The owner is getting the right hump by now. ‘Do you think I was born yesterday? There’s no way you are leaving here without paying your bill,’ he menaces. Suddenly a couple of the cooks almost magically appear next to him holding big shiny and very sharp meat cleavers.

  They are wiry little blokes but look like they know they’re way around the choppers they are waving about in the air.

  They also look pretty unimpressed that this English fella can’t pay up. Looks like someone is getting a kicking very soon and that person is me.

  ‘Look guys, I’m really sorry, my mates have well dropped me in it here. Look, I tell you what, I’ll leave you my watch and get back to my hotel where I’ve got a credit card and I’ll sort this out’ I beg and plead.

  ‘I don’t want your fucking watch or your card, I want Pound Notes and lots of them,’ he spits. ‘This is an insult to my family. You come into my restaurant, you little turd and eat my food without paying. I’m going to fuck you up!’ he exclaims.

  He is absolutely seething. The two chefs are smiling and look like they are going to really enjoy delivering the beating that is surely coming my way. I am terrified. I wonder if breaking out the tears will get me any pity.

  ‘Please fella, calm down,’ I whimper. ‘Let’s call The British Consulate, we can sort this situation without violence.’

  On hearing this, the owner and the cleaver twins start
howling with laughter. He whistles and all the lads reappear from a room behind me where they have been hiding and listening to me crawling for my life. One guy shouts out, ‘British Consulate, you massive ball of cock cheese!’ Nuff said. The stags are all falling about. They’ve heard the whole lot.

  ‘We got you!’ says the owner. He absolutely loves a wind up and he can’t stop laughing, so brings out another round of Cobra lagers on the house. He then grabs his camera and takes loads of photographs of me and the boys being ‘attacked’ by the lads with the meat cleavers.

  ‘These pictures are going up behind the bar,’ he announces proudly. So if you are ever in Edinburgh in an Indian restaurant and you see the evidence hanging up, spare a thought for the seat of those nice new jeans I was wearing. They were a little squelchy I can tell you.