Looking to ruin your beautiful home? Look no further as The List gets ready to party.
Words: Louisa Pearson Photo and styling: Annabel Findlay
The Planning
Your house
In the olden days a party might have meant putting your best china on display. but these days it's more a case of laying out your favourite CDs and proclaiming. ‘Please amigos. spill every type of alcohol on these babies then use them as an ashtray — they come with a guarantee. you know.‘ By adopting a devil-may—care attitude you’ll spare yourself a lot of heartbreak later on. By all means clean the house and lock up the valuables. but once you've made the decision to have a house party. accept the cold hard fact that spillages and breakang are part of the deal. The entrepreneurial will look on this as an opportunity — that replica of the Eiffel Tower made entirely from shells which Auntie Sadie brought back from her SAGA trip to France? This is your chance to bid it an revoir.
You’ll obviously be too drunk to lock your bedroom. This means your two most drunk friends will end up shagging on your bed. Yuk. Instead of despairing. why not install a condom machine? Not only will this help prevent unwanted pregnancy. you can fix the price to ensure a tidy profit. Forget all thoughts of ‘clearing out the lounge‘. You‘ll only put your back out shifting your landlord‘s ‘antique‘ fumiture before realising that everybody is going to spend the entire night in
every other room in the house while the lounge assumes an air
of tragic decay. Removing the TV has the added benefit ofensuring it doesn‘t get switched on under the pretence of watching
MTV/VH1 for the music. as before long a cult film is bound to come on and you'll have a room-full of vegetables. Remember. TV is a conversation and therefore party-killer. But there’s always the wild chance that if you run Jane Fonda‘s workout vids all night. you’ll be able to persuade the burliest bloke in the house to don a leotard and stretch. 2. 3. 4. Never waste your money on super-soft quilted loo-roll for your guests. That hideously cheap grey stuff they stock in your place of work is more than adequate: make sure your bag is large enough to hide the evidence of your pilfering or you could be having at P45 party before you know it. Beer cans and the carpet will be the ashtrays of choice so don’t waste your money on some nice chunky glass numbers.
The uest list
First [I‘llng first: how many people do you want in your house? If you want this to be a patty to remember you need a good quota of people you‘ve never seen before and hope never to see again. I-lowsabout flyering? Your mate who takes club fliers round the pubs won‘t mind handing out a few hand-made extras. Another way is to grab the microphone off the karaoke host at your local and invite the whole pub back. Interesting people never turn down the chance to keep drinking after hours. But when picking your guests be ver aware that the free-for-all approach could include a whole rugby team who will eat any food they can lind in your kitchen plus make bad smells. So choose wisely.
It goes without saying you should have a good percentage of flirts. talkative and generally upbeat types. The local drug dealer is also a welcome addition: you could even charge him a fee for handing him such a lot of business on a plate. A pill’l)’ is the perfect place to create gossip and encourage b
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