My excitement at being invited to a party lead to my hasty – and in hindsight, rash – offer to wear a kilt.

Now, I love my kilts and I’ll wear them at the drop of a hat, everyone knows this. However women – for some crazy unknown reason – go a bit funny when they see a man in a kilt. I’ve experienced this before many, many times. I’ve gotten used to it.

You know the sort of thing, questions about what’s underneath it – which for the record is nothing – and such. Although I have often wondered what would happen to me if I approached a girl at a party, complimented her on her dress and then followed it up by asking if she was wearing any knickers.

I can’t imagine it would be a positive outcome.

My point is that I’ve heard every question that’s going and had much negative attention. Admittedly this is normally only limited to one rather obvious question and hey, there’s nothing wrong with a bit of negative attention. Attention’s attention right?

Given all of this though, all the years of constant sexual harassment and drunken gropes, none of it – not a bit – prepared me for the near raping that I got that night.

The young lady in question – the would be perpetrator of said sex crime – made herself known to me about a quarter of a second after I arrived. She greeted me at the door and no sooner had I plonked the booze down in the kitchen than she was offering me and the small band with me, a tour of the house.

Bear in mind this wasn’t her house, no, no, no. This didn’t stop her, she still showed us around. Bedrooms, bathrooms, bedrooms, the living room, the lounge, another bedroom, the list felt practically endless and not a little biased towards bedrooms.

Eventually we settled in what must have – at one point – been the attic. It was nice enough, a couple of sofas and soft lighting. I wasn’t alone with her. I felt safe.

It was pretty clear, pretty quickly, that she was bat shit crazy. So I hastily made my excuses and went back downstairs to socialise with the rest of the party goers.

All was, seemingly, well.

For the purposes of illustration of just how freaky the next bit is I’m going to have to call upon you to recall – if you can – the scene from Bram Stoker’s Dracula where Gary Oldman (Dracula) is chatting up Winona Ryder (Mina) on a Victorian street.

You know the bit, Dracula’s pulling all his best moves and Mina’s getting all flustered and flounces off down the street, turns the corner and bumps straight into Dracula again? Yeah? Remember that?

Well that’s what this was like. No sooner had I made it back downstairs to the kitchen and there she was, standing in front of me, ready to engage in some lightly sexualised conversation again.

Now my problem is that I’m too nice, or at least I was at this point.

I stood there pouring myself a nice big drink and chatting to her, trying to avoid the obvious innuendo that littered her dialogue. After a few minutes of this I excused myself and made a move towards the living room. I left her there chatting to some rugby playing boys.

At least I thought I had.

I don’t what had happened between my leaving the kitchen and getting to the living room but by the time I got there, she was there. Now I’m not sure whether she was teleporting or calling upon the dark arts or what but whatever it was she was doing it had gotten her drunk.

And when I say she was drunk, I mean she was battered. She was slurring and looking at me the way only horny, drunk women can. Scarily. Maybe that’s what dematerialisation/materialisation process does to you, who knows all I know is I wanted to get away.

No chance.

Out of the nowhere she then progressed onto – what must I now assume to be – stage two and asked if I’d like to go somewhere more private for some fun.

Being the gentleman I am I politely declined and tried to move the subject around to something a little less charged. Quiche for example. She wasn’t having it.

I stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by people, telling her that I wasn’t interested but still she kept on trying. She cajoled, tried to kiss me and then resorted to – what can only be described as – begging.

It was shameful.

When I sat down on the sofa, she tried to sit on my knee. If I got up to peruse the buffet, she’d follow me and try and grope my arse. She just would not fuck off. Flattering as it was, it was also very, very creepy.

In the end she only left the room after demanding to sit next to me and plonking her entire body weight onto a foam foot stool that promptly collapsed, sending her flying into the speakers in the corner of the room.

Her cries of distress being easily heard, given the lack of music her tumble had brought about, she realised everyone was watching so at this point fled the scene.

Huzzah!

She later reappeared at the door – so I am told – and attempted to beckon the back of my head with a sexy come hither finger wave. Needless to say it fell on deaf, er, ears, or eyes or whatever.

Did I mention she looked a bit like Dennis Waterman? Well, she did.

I’m sure she’s a lovely girl really.

Restless Cheese and I went to see Pearl Jam in Manchester last night, in true fashion this was just a bit of an excuse for some hard drinking, although whether or not I’d call white russians hard I’m not certain.

So as far as it goes we arrived in Manchester around half five – after a completely dry train journey – checked into our hotel and then headed off out for a bit of dinner and a couple of cheeky cocktails. Queue the Revolution!

I’m quite a fan of Revolutions – the bars, not the uprisings – they’re generally pretty cool during the day and, if you time it right, not too bad at night either.

So we mosey on in and after a brief tussle with the menu and the outrageous offers we settled on a bargaintastic two for one burger deal (or mushroom-in-a-bap for Restless Cheese), along with some top notch two for one cocktails. Nice! Revolution had clearly lined itself up for a later visit.

It was at this, post Pearl Jam, visit that the coolest thing in the world happened.

Once we arrived back in Revolution the lure of shots was irresistible, the most amazing of which is or was the porridge shot. The porridge shot is a heady mix of vodka sugar and oats, and its taste is beyond amazing. Although some people, who shall remain nameless and who are clearly big mincers, think it’s foul.

Anyway this ambrosia no longer features on Revolution’s shot menu, undeterred by this I asked the lovely Duncan (best barman in the world by the way) if he had access to a secret stash of said alcohol. After a brief furtle in the cellar he returned with a bottle containing – what can only be described as – oaty dregs.

I of course jumped at the chance to consume this most delicious drink and immediately ordered two.

After retiring to a table Restless Cheese and I drank our white russians, interspersing their consumption with a shot or two from our ‘stick’. It was on about shot three that the magic happened.

Duncan approached our table and produced an entire bottle of porridge vodka from behind his back! How much was he asking for this delicious treat? Just £10. Ten stirlings for the most delicious drink in the world?

Did I want it? Yes I did!

Did I get it? Yes I did!

What I do have to say though is that I owe a great deal of thanks to Restless Cheese, for it was on his dollar that this bottle was purchased. Thank you, you are a great friend and I can’t wait to open it to celebrate the birth of your son and heir! I don’t care if that was a drunken promise either, you’re sticking to it!

And tweet it I did.

Turns out everyone in the world seemed to know that Pizza Hut has rebranded to Pasta Hut as part of some promotional thing they’ve got going on. At least that’s what all my Twitter chums told me.

But wait! What’s this? A quick google seems to indicate that this may be a permanent rebranding exercise! At least this article from The Times would have me believe that to be the case.

It does beg the question though, why? What do they hope to achieve by retaining the the same style logo and the exact same restaurants by just changing the name. Even the font in the logo is the same.

Surely if, as The Times article suggest, they are trying to appeal to the middle classes they should have started anew, ditched the hut roof logo altogether and gone for something a little classier.

It just doesn’t work, they’re clearly trying to maintain a very dangerous course out there in the middle ground.

They want the unwashed, pizza chomping masses to still recognise that they’re, more or less, the same Meat Feast flogging chain they were before but at the same time let the yummy mummies, with their sad eyed children, know that, ‘Hey! We’re healthy now, look we do crayfish arrabiata!’.

I seem to recall that Bella Pasta became Bella Italia a few years back, didn’t seem to do them much good. Their food was still shit and the service still abominable. I once got served a 10″ pepperoni pizza with just eight pieces of pepperoni on it. The manager couldn’t offer me anymore as head office had decreed that eight pieces per pizza was the limit. Madness.

It looks like Pizza Hut are about to fall into the trap of believing that a lick of paint and a new menu will sort out all their problems. It won’t.

It’s not their logo I dislike, it’s not their name or the decor inside. It’s not even the menu, I happen to like the occasional Meat Feast and go there now and again to sample its greasy delights.

No, it’s none of that. It’s the staff I can’t stand. Any shit hole can be made bearable with the right staff. Ditch the students and the Saturday working school kids and get in proper staff for proper wages.

Mark my words the first high street, down market eatery that serves half way decent food and employs adults on good money won’t be able to keep people away.

That I promise.

It was very good of Andy to let it go ahead.

So, much against his will, he had a stag do.

The pictures will appear here soon.

I learnt many wonderful things over the course of the night. For example Sambuca comes in regular, black and flavoured varieties, some drinks can be referred to as pure filth and there are more germs on a slightly dirty glass than there are in a bin!.

For those that couldn’t make it you can PayPal me the money you owe me, just click the button below. That includes you Purdy. By the way, this isn’t a joke, you all owe me £25. So pay up.