Get shitfaced and eat a swan: How to spend your birthday like the Queen

21st April 2022

DO you share a birthday with the Queen? Here’s how to celebrate in wild style today, just like Elizabeth II.

Stay in a country house

The Queen is staying in a farmhouse in Norfolk for her birthday which sounds like a pretty normal thing to do, except that ‘farmhouse’ means ‘massive mansion on the Sandringham Estate’. You might be able to scrape together enough money for an Airbnb in Norwich, if you get your mates to chip in.

Fire a gun

Her Majesty will be honoured with a 41-gun salute in Hyde Park tomorrow, which sounds pretty impressive. You could achieve something similar by asking your weird friend Brian to fire off a few ’rounds’ from his air rifle in a pub car park, but bear in mind he will probably be arrested afterwards.

Have another birthday in the summer because why the f**k not?

Let’s face it, April is a shit time for a birthday as it’s nippy and can suddenly start pissing with rain. The Queen has another one on the second Saturday in June which you should do too, as you’re likely to be off work and can spend the day getting wasted in the sun.

Argue with your family

The Queen is going to spend her birthday with her family, which should be fun given the amount of disgraced progeny and uppity grandchildren she has to contend with. Yours will be similarly fraught, but slightly better because you won’t have to pretend that one of your close relatives hasn’t just paid out millions of pounds to get off the hook in a dodgy paedo case.

Get shitfaced and eat a swan

Why be Queen and surrounded by loads of weird, arcane laws if you can’t occasionally make use of them to do something interesting, like get pissed and eat a swan? As a commoner you’ll have to catch your own from the local duck pond. If you don’t get Weil’s disease and it doesn’t break your arm, you’ll be in for a slap-up birthday dinner.

16 WhatsApp messages to pretend you haven't seen

20th April 2022

WHATSAPP can be useful, but it’s just as likely to turn into the bane of your f**king life. Mainly when people do these things…

1. When you don’t reply to someone straight away but they chase you up five minutes later with a ‘hello?’ or even worse a row of ‘????’ Get a life, pal.

2. But it’s also annoying when you can see someone has read your message but they haven’t replied.

3. When you don’t want to get into a text conversation but the other person keeps asking you f**king questions. ‘How are you?’ ‘What are you up to this weekend?’ Er, stuff that doesn’t need a long-winded text chat about it, thank you very much.

4. Really loud for the people at the back – no one wants to see a surprise picture of a penis, ever. Unless they have specifically asked for a photo of your dick, do NOT do it. Even then, ask if they’re a bit weird to want a picture of a veiny, disembodied dong to carry around with them.

5. When you get a message asking if you agree to be added to a group text. If you say ‘no’, you’ll look a miserable dick. Say ‘yes’ and you’re stuck in a sea of messages about bollocks for months. Watch out for the chilling words ‘Hen Party’.

6. You glance down to find a 500-word essay, compiled over 11 texts. No one has time for that shit.

7. Conversely, when someone replies to you with a single thumbs-up emoji. Let’s face it, what they are saying here is ‘I see your message, but I do not deem you important enough to waste words on.’

8. When you see ‘someone is typing’ on and off for ages and automatically assume they have something difficult to tell you and are thinking of the best way to word it. They’ve actually just stopped for no reason because their concentration span is shot to pieces by years of social media.

9. Any message the morning after the night before. You are in no fit state to hear how you blasted out three verses of Black Velvet before throwing up in a pint glass.

10. Inappropriate memes. Everyone has that one friend who sends an inappropriate meme and you forget all about it until your kids are looking through your phone photos and shout ‘what’s a c-word, mummy?’

11. Other people’s holiday photos. You do not want to see 600 photos of their kids on the beach. You can’t exactly join in the fun. It’s like being a creepy virtual child snatcher.

12. Any message asking if you are free at the weekend. Tell me why THEN I’ll decide whether I am free or not.

13. A voice note. You never even listen to your answering machine messages so what makes them think you have time to listen to a 10-minute monologue about their trip to the vet?

14. When someone overdoes the emojis. I don’t need a little sad face to understand you are upset about losing your job. Or a picture of a cake every time you say ‘birthday’. Just use words, mate.

15. Any message that includes ‘hi hun’, ‘lol’, ‘OMG’ or ‘lmao’.

16. When someone corrects what was clearly a typo or predictive text error: ‘nicf one? Don’t you mean nice, lol’ Just fucj off.