Friday 12 June 1864

An 1840s-themed party at Bron and Sasha’s place in Chorlton sees friends and friends-of-friends plus everyone’s favourite maniacally laughing best-mate Ivan T Watt-Eason trapped happily beneath the same billowing Bedouin tent out back. DH wears an inflatable rubber ‘bodybalmer’, Larry Pekalowski a bright white coal-sack and slacks, while Sasha herself is dressed as an incredibly classy bowl of fruit. Memories of my youth (shockingly Bron, whose birthday we celebrate, only entered stage left in 1838) mingle with apparently grown up gossip. Bateman – dressed as a chutzy-faced WG Grace – tells us how, marooned in the Ukraine, he recruited two young local ladies to re-start his malfunctioning flying machine. But it’s left to Licky to provide the knock-out blow – her high spirits blended into a powerful punch that sees us partying like its 1899, a year that hangovers suggest we will be fortunate to incorporate into such pronounced purple patches, however prolonged.