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'Season's greetings, from Jim and Carol': Five ways to find out who the f**k Jim and Carol are

RECEIVED a hand-delivered Christmas card and wondering who the hell sent it? These methods to identify the culprits could set your minds to rest:

Rack your brains

The card is allegedly from ‘Jim and Carol’, and between yourself and your partner you think you know three Jims and two Carols. None are connected, and one’s actually a Jimmy. There’s a Jim from work and cousin Carol, but as far as you know neither are married to a Carol or a Jim. You message them anyway.

Consult a family tree

Your eccentric retired uncle plagued you with details of your extended family tree and you were uninterested to the point of rudeness. Unfortunately when you ask him about Jims and Carols he remembers your bad attitude and sadistically keeps you on the phone for an hour while he pretends to scour old documents. When he knows full well there hasn’t been a Jim and Carol in the family since 1840, the sad bastard.

Trawl social media

Local Facebook groups are the font of all knowledge, if it’s dreary parochial crap. Join yours and spend the first few hours wading through posts about local handymen, ‘dog mess’ and creepy attempts by men to ingratiate themselves if you’re a woman. Then ask about Jim and Carol, which will generate every possible sighting of Jims and Carols, leading to the conclusion that none of them are your Jim and Carol. A brilliant piece of crowdsourcing, made possible by retired people having f**k all to do.

Go door-to-door

You’ve done all you can from the comfort of your sofa and the need to know still consumes you. It’s time to be proactive and go house-to-house like Jehovah’s Witnesses. Take a clipboard for a nicely official touch. If by happy coincidence you are Jehovah’s Witnesses, you can combine your search for Jim and Carol with sharing the good news that Jesus is coming back any day now and has an odd grudge against blood transfusions and black pudding.

Become obsessed

You’ve come so far in your own Dan Brown novel you can’t stop now. Put a banner across a bridge, leave ‘Do you know Jim and Carol?’ notices on lamp posts, get on the local news – a story about obsessive local idiots always goes down well. ‘Please get in touch, Jim and Carol,’ you’ll plead, ‘You hand-posted a Christmas card and we can’t move on with our lives until we’ve given you one back.’ Hopefully they will come forward and you can get closure by sending them a cheap card of a robin that barely stands up.

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How to stop yourself sobering up between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve

THERE’S a whole week between the year’s two biggest piss-ups. If you want to keep the party going while you wait, stay half-cut with this guide: 

Establish a support network

It’s unreasonable to expect you to do this by yourself. If you want to stay shitfaced for six days straight, you’re going to need a network of close friends and relatives to supportively place another drink into your trembling hands. Don’t feel like a burden though – you’ll be repaying the favour by grabbing them a bottle whenever you stumble uncertainly to the fridge.

Indulge your triggers

People trying to achieve a life of sobriety avoid anything that will set off their vice. Since you’re taking the opposite approach, constantly expose yourself to temptation. Anything from lingering in the cheerful atmosphere of a pub to putting yourself in stressful situations where you desperately need alcohol to calm your nerves will work. Perhaps visit the roughest local hostelry wearing a ‘MORE IMMIGRATION NOW!’ T-shirt? As long as you struggle to form barely coherent sentences, you’re doing it right.

Pace yourself

This is a marathon, not a sprint. You’re trying to find the sweet spot where you’re more than tipsy but not quite paralytic. Going too soft will bring the crushing mundanity of the festive dead zone into harsh relief, whereas drinking too much could send you spiralling into an ill-timed hangover on New Year’s Eve. Don’t waste all of December 31st hunched miserably over a toilet puking your guts up. That’s what January 1st is for.

Eat the bare minimum

Seasoned pissheads already know that eating’s cheating, but it’s especially important to remember this disclaimer at Christmas. With so many slices of cured meat and Pringles tubes to hand, it’s all too easy to inadvertently graze your way to clearheadedness. If you must eat more than the bare minimum needed to keep you alive, opt for chocolate liqueurs to keep your blood alcohol level up.

Ignore your limits

Over the course of the week your body is going to try to tell you to stop knocking back booze and drink a healthy glass of water instead. At times like these you’ll need to tap reserves of physical and mental determination. By ignoring the limits of what your liver, bowels and brain cells can tolerate, you’ll reach new plateaus of intoxicated merriment. Have you got a drink problem? No, you’re powering through the infamous wall!

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