He woke me up and boldly exclaimed that we were having another party. Not a proper party, he clarified when I started to sleepily kick off. You might remember who I am. My name's Gazz. I don't like parties. So he says it's NOT a party, per sé. It's just Nick and maybe Akin, few drinks and perhaps a few games on the Wii. Yes... well... fine then. I suppose. I resented the presumption that I'd just be all right with this plan though! He goes ahead and fucking plans a gathering, get together or what the fuck ever, doesn't consult me at all and then swans into my room like Lord fucking Byron and pronounces that "it's on" and he thinks he can get away with it just because everything he's proposing sounds like a lot of fun?!

What... I think you'll agree... a bell-end!

We bought a bunch of lager for the New Power Hour [Nick re-crafted the hour a couple of weeks ago before our Shit Party, and since then has been arduously removing the dead wood tracks and replacing them with fresher ones] and waited for our guests to arrive. Nick both panicked and delighted me when he said A) He was bringing people to our ‘not a party’ and B) Some of those people were Hoss and Hinge! I didn't believe him for a second. MAYBE Hoss is capable of keeping a secret trip to London under his hat, but Hinge would have posted about thirty ‘LONDON BABY’ style statuses counting down his entire journey.

Hinge O'Mahoney is folding a t-shirt for LONDON BABY!
Hinge O'Mahoney is buying an Upper Crust Bacon N cheez baggett....    LONDONBABY!
Hinge O'Mahoney just saw a tramp piss on another tramp. LONDONABBSBYSYSSBAAAYYY!!!!

The first Power Hour of the night was in fact Akin's first Power Hour EVER, and as Nick prepared the MP3 I went through the rules with him one last time. He seemed confident, but we knew the awful truth. Akin was doomed from the offset, deciding as he had to compete in this most difficult of endurance games wielding Cider as his weapon du jour. Mist-Ak Number One.

Mistake... Mista... because he's called AKIN and so mistake and Ak... NEVER MIND. We played the Hour, and it was good. Plenty of singing and banging, which Akin got well into in short order and James sat back and looked the same as usual because he pretends he doesn't like the Power Hour simply because he daren't attempt it. He's like that guy who says he doesn't like flying when he's never been higher in the air than his own bedroom.

I fell foul of one of the biggest, but easiest to combat pitfalls of the Hour. Gas.

Drinking the equivalent of 5 cans of lager in single shot bursts of one every 30 seconds to a minute has two effects. You get drunker quicker and you start to carbonate your own stomach acid. You gotta burp it out, or face disaster! Burping regularly releases the stored up beer gas at safe intervals to keep the entire system from becoming over pressurised and stops you being sick because you saved it up and burped too hard. Failure to vent causes the gas to build and build, eventually erupting as combustion propelled projectile vomit. Essentially you're being sick, but imagine your stomach is a balloon full of pressurised air and food [in my case, barely digested and even more barely chewed hot dogs], and your throat is a hose attached to the balloon.

Now stamp on the balloon.

Exactly.

I only missed 4 shots though and I made them right back up again as soon as I returned to the arena. That's the good thing about me, you see. I'm sick so often [I'm not bulimic or anything, I just can't handle my ale] that I've gotten used to it. I can throw up and carry on drinking, feeling pretty mint [NOTE: I also did NOT have a hangover the next morning. Coincidence?!] I even managed to get all the way through The Dreaded Power Minute. Nick himself bowed out 20 seconds into the deadly minute, whereas my journey doesn't count because of the aforementioned Rocket Puke. Just one man stood tall above the crowd, and not just because he's like 2 or 3 inches taller than everyone else. That man was Akin, the first timer. The n00b. The greenhorn. The rookie. The... freshman? Yeah fuck it. The Freshman!

He was fresh all right, fresh as a daisy going in to the Hour but slightly less fresh than last week’s omelette coming out the other side. Bald Lazer Jesus he did NOT look good. I had to raise his hand for him to signify victory. The Bulmers fuelled Hour had been his hardest battle yet, and though he had triumphed, he didn't bloody look it. He slinked, like Peter Slugman, to the other sofa out the way and promptly fell asleep. It was here that he learned his second lesson of the evening. To quote his own words "Never fall asleep around white guys." We'd tried to start playing Flatout on the 360, but the man passed out with the controller still in hand!

You KNOW we piled stuff on him. You know that right? Tinsel, birthday cards, crisp packets, empty beer tins and a box all found themselves precariously balanced on a sleeping giant. I was sceptical about getting away with the Bear Ears, which I just happened to have lying around, but we strived and achieved on those as well. Then we took pictures with him, like we'd found Johnny Vaughn asleep under a bridge. Me and Nick went through a second Power Hour too, like MEN, but it was a much more relaxed affair than the first one. A Friendly, to put it in the parlance of SkySports News. Despite my previous complaints, half hearted though they might have been, I had a right laugh and enjoyed playing Ak-aroo immensely.

That up there, is Gazz’ version of events from the other weekend. Hold on though, because I believe to get the full story, you need to hear my version as well. See what he’s said up in that first paragraph? I planned a ‘not a party’, Him, Nick, Akin, and Me, sat round, few beers, few games on Nick’s Wii (he was bringing it round), that was the plan. So where did the Power Hour come in to it? Gazz is right (for once), I hate the Power Hour. I don’t ‘pretend’ to dislike it, I hate it. It’s pointless. I’m not like the guy who says he doesn’t like flying when he’s never been higher in the aid than his own bedroom. That is an example of someone else, in a different situation, and therefore not the same thing. I wouldn’t want to slit my own throat either. I haven’t test-driven that past time, and still know I wouldn’t like it.

My first problem with the evening, were the changes to the plan. I invited Akin, and Nick, and sold Gazz on the premise of ‘few beers’, and ‘few Wii party games’. None of those things happened. Power Hour happened, then after that, Power Hour happened again. It’s like waiting in the queue for a rollercoaster. You wait there for an hour, then just before you step on, everyone to ride it in the last hour jumps back in front of you, and you’ve got another hour wait. Nick enjoys it, Gazz enjoys it, fair enough... I’ve got no problem with them doing something they enjoy, but don’t crash my planned ‘not a party’ with it. That’s just rude. Then what about Akin? I’d invited him round for an advertised evening of one kind. If I couldn’t deliver, I’d feel like I let him down. OK, Akin was in to the first Power Hour, it was his first time, he was full of the eager anticipation that comes with a new experience. But after he was done, he felt pretty sickly. The last thing he wanted at that stage (I can only imagine) is for everyone else to start another Power Hour! That’s just purposely doing something you know 50% of the people in the room won’t just not be interested in, but annoyed by with it being so incredibly loud and boisterous.

And so we move on to the main crux of the situation. I dislike the Power Hour, and therefore don’t like to be forced to just watch other people do it. I can only guess Gazz would suggest I get over it, and enjoy it because it simply ‘is fun’. However this is like him making me a drink. I ask for coffee, but he thinks ‘Coffee? No no... Coffee isn’t as nice as tea. He must mean he wants tea. I’ll make him tea.’

My problem with the hour is closely linked to Gazz’ description of the ‘game’. It’s all about gas. You drink so much gassy beer, it builds up in your stomach, and blah blah blah, you’ve already read the science bit. Gazz’ method of getting over this is to burp. Keep up a steady stream of burping, and you’ll keep your gas levels low enough not to sick it all up at the same time. Even though he knows how to get through it using constant burping, he’s never able to do it. My constitutional disagreement is with a game that encourages you to vomit, tactically. At this stage, it becomes a game of seeing how much you can drink in a short space of time, without being sick. Or if you have to be sick (which I would be as I too, cannot handle my ale), can carry on drinking.

I don’t see the fun in that.

For another [reportedly more accurate] account from our [previously] beloved Akin, skip past this crock of lies and head over to The Sour Hour [Revisited] to see what really went down.