The Going Out Guide to Going Out part two: the dinner party by Jon Horne 2001 © Touch Nottingham (internet magazine and What's On guide) Turning thirty never bothered me very much. Twenty-six had always seemed the big, portentous birthday - the day when I would have to look back and see if I had fulfilled my teenage dreams. In fact, I had a stinking cold on my twenty-sixth birthday, so I wasn't in much of a mood for introspection. Nonetheless, I did make changes to my life during my twenty-seventh year - none of which matter very much as far as this article is concerned, but they do indicate that twenty-six is a special sort of age. What does matter is that by the time I turned thirty, my life was happily chugging along the paths I had chosen, and so the impending day did not seem at all momentous. I was staying with a friend at the time, who happened to share my birthday. She was about to turn twenty-eight, was throwing a party, and had graciously decided to share the birthday honours. We spent the day buying wine and beer, mixing punch, cooking up nibbles, and tidying the flat. I suggested folding up the dining room table and getting it out of the way. My friend said, no; leave the thing where it is. Fair enough, I said, it's your table that's going to get wrecked. It came to seven o'clock, and I was ready to put my feet up for a couple of hours before the guests arrived. My friend emerged from her bedroom, stunningly dolled-up, just in time to hear the doorbell ring. "Who the...?" I spluttered angrily. "Right on time!" my friend said breezily, adding: "Aren't you ready yet? Come on Jon, we've got guests." I stamped off into the bedroom to change, while my friend answered the door. Between seven and eight o'clock, fourteen people arrived - everyone whom my friend had invited. They all sat around the dining room table, moving benches in from the kitchen to accommodate everyone. Then they started talking, and I started drinking. Politics, religion, philosophy, relationships: an intellectual forum had formed around the table, and the debates were raging. It was like a late-night drunken deep-and-meaningful, except that it was not yet nine o'clock, no one was drunk or emotional, and everyone was talking perfect sense. My friend brought out the nibbles and arranged them like a buffet. Everyone was given a plate and a fork. Eventually I joined in - I can spout noisy opinions as well as anyone else - and we all had a thoroughly civilised time. By midnight, the food plates were empty; we'd got through all of the wine and some of the beer; I had made some temporary new friends, and everyone was nicely relaxed. Then everyone left, with warm thank-yous, happy-birthdays, handshakes and kisses on the cheek. "Did you enjoy that?" my friend asked, as we washed up. "Well... yes," I replied. "I love dinner parties," she said. My thirtieth birthday was the first party I had been to where no one was sick; where no one tried to gate-crash; where no couples attempted to have sex in the bathroom or on the pile of coats in the bedroom; where there was no pile of coats in the bedroom - the coats having all been hung on the coat-rack, or folded carefully over the backs of chairs; where no one broke anything, or trod on the cat; where all the food got eaten. No one else had brought beer, and my friend was left with half a rack of middling-to-expensive wine to enjoy whenever she saw fit. My first dinner party changed me - and not necessarily for the better. I did enjoy it, and it did give me an insight into how a person of my age is supposed to act. I like intellectual discussions: we can all do with listening to people and learning something. Anyway, there's no value in throwing up and behaving like a yob in someone else's house. Even as a teenager, I hated the sort of party-animal who abused the host. Still, there was always a special feeling when it came to four o'clock in the morning, and everyone was too tired and drunk to dance; when the person whom you'd spent all night trying to chat up crawled over and leaned her head on your shoulder before passing out; when you finally sobered up enough to start walking home, only to be made drunk again by the first breath of fresh air. These days, such things seem like the signs of arrested development. God help me: I might have become a dinner-party sort of person. I still go to drunken house parties when I get the chance - and if anyone was thinking of inviting me to one, don't let this article put you off. I don't have the stamina that I remember having in my youth - but that might be more to do with my failing memory than anything else. Nonetheless, I always feel as if I'm acting the part of someone much younger than myself when I'm at a truly messy house party. The thing is, messy house parties are so much better than they used to be. Once upon a time, it was always the sad bloke with not enough friends who took over the stereo. Nowadays, if there's not a DJ with a megawatt sound-system in every silver-foil-covered bedroom, it's barely counted as a party. Some of the people reading this article will recall a house party which had a nine-piece New York funk band playing in the kitchen - I don't, because I bloody missed it. And I was invited. Sorry, this is getting a bit personal now. All I'm saying is this: When you hit thirty, beware of the seductive charm of the dinner party. Once you start going to them, it is hard to stop. - - - read more rants and raves