Status Anxiety: Big night out

At what age does it become infra dig to get drunk in public? Some people might say that it’s always unacceptable, no matter how young and student-like you are. But the older you get, the more embarrassing it becomes.

Take my own behaviour at James Delingpole’s book party. At the advanced age of 48, I really shouldn’t stay at book launches for more than half an hour. The sensible thing would have been to pop in at 6.30 p.m., drink a single glass of wine, buy a copy of James’s book and then be home in time for supper.

Well, I had no problem getting there early. It was the leaving part that proved difficult. James’s book is called Watermelons, the label he gives to people who are green on the outside but red on the inside. Unfortunately, by the time I left at around 11p.m. I was the opposite of a watermelon: red in the face and green around the gills. I was so blotto, I ended up heading to the Groucho Club in a taxi with a bunch of pissed hacks, even though I’ve been banned from the Groucho since 2001.

I was bleeding at this point, having fallen and hit my head, though you probably wouldn’t have noticed on account of the fact that my suit and shirt were liberally covered in red wine. Not a good look for a man approaching his sixth decade.

Before I relate how the evening turned out, let me offer a few excuses. For one thing, there were waiters running around with bottles of champagne. Usually at these events you have to battle a scrum of freeloading hacks crowding round the bar, which means you’re lucky if you manage to drink a couple of units per hour.