HUMOUR

How to party like accountants this financial New Year’s Eve

EXCITED about the new tax year? Here’s how to party like an accountant before a thrilling new fiscal year begins in April. Don’t forget the Alka-Seltzer!

Choose the venue prudently

Hiring a party venue can be costly, and the company office has overheads, so show fiscal prudence and reduce outlay by partying at someone’s home. If everyone rocks up with their laptop and logs in, the host can claim on their tax return for using the house as an office. Talk about starting the party with a bang!

Estimate outgoings for food and drink

Base your figures on the previous financial year’s consumption and forecast an average spend. Historic data patterns reveal one of the party will be pregnant and abstain from drinking, but will consume double the snacks, and your fat bastard colleague Gareth will appreciate to two persons with food and three for drink.

Dress to bill

Accountancy party clothes vary only slightly from work clothes. For men, it’s a novelty tie, for women, it’s brighter shoes and smaller bag. Aftershaves and perfumes never fluctuate, only percentage application increases. Now you’re ready to paint the town the colour of a worrying deficit in a ledger.

Harvest attendance data

As with company accounts, there’s no room for ambiguity. Collect signed and witnessed confirmations from all potential attendees. Last year’s figures indicate that approximately 12 per cent of attendees will bale out, and a further seven per cent will get lost en route. All figures must be quantifiable to one decimal place and rounded down. ‘Who needs booze when you’re having this much fun?’ you joke.

Have quantified fun

Now the party can begin in earnest. Having calculated you will take 1.25 hours to consume each of your four 330ml cans of moderately pissy IPA, you can index-link letting your hair down accordingly. Start with some accountancy games to break the ice, such as ‘Pin the upturn on the flowchart’. As the alcohol flows at join in the karaoke with a rendition of Pocket Calculator by Kraftwerk. By the fourth can your probability copping off with someone feels statistically high. Sadly this was the booze talking, and a further audit of the figures reveals you will sing Auld Lang Syne and go home alone.

The morning after

Despite your last drink being a Horlicks, you wake up with a thumping hangover next to your laptop and a crusty taxi receipt you will sponge clean and file. You hang up a new calendar and begin your Financial New Year’s resolution to format a new spreadsheet for the coming year. It’s been a party that will go down in accountancy legend!

TRIED to spice things up with dirty texts and been rebuffed? Here’s how to move onto a much safer topic: the British weather.

Tell your partner they misunderstood

When you asked if she was wet, what you meant was ‘due to the downpour we just had’. If you requested shower pics, you meant her in a charming mac caught in an April shower. Sadly you have now condemned yourself to receiving and commenting on ‘adorable’ pictures of her whenever she gets caught in the rain. Get ready with those ‘likes’.

Show concern

You only wanted to know what he was wearing to make sure it was climate-appropriate. The same with telling him he was ‘hot’. You just were trying to persuade him to wear a sun hat and cooling lightweight clothing. How could you worrying about heatstroke and dehydration be misconstrued as sexual? Shore up this gaslighting by asking if he’s ever been treated for sex addiction.

Blame the seasons and your allergies

Alright, you were a bit forward, but it’s the weather. The warmer temperatures have caused the flowers to bloom and release pollen and it’s made you delirious with hayfever. So let’s talk about that and not that dick pic you sent. Admitted this is the first case of hayfever to have the same effects as malaria, but you don’t have many options. Maybe you can convince her you accidentally dropped your phone down your trousers? No, that’s just as bad.

Turn your dirty talk into a weather report

For example: ‘After a warm front, things have turned rather chilly. There’s been a sharp drop in enthusiasm and earlier projections of heavy activity have now been downgraded to light drizzle at best. Conditions are tense but stable. Expect a long dry spell ahead.’ See, this is like a spoof weather report on a comedy show! Ha ha ha! Is he laughing? No, he’s thinking about dating someone less weird.

Never speak of what happened again

Like a sunny spell, your attempt at being sexy came and went and now you’re back to gloom and small talk. Both of you should bury this awkward memory and only talk about the weather from now on. It’s the British way.

BREAKING up is hard to do, and it would be wrong to outsource it to a Large Language Model like all other hard work. That’s why all of these are human and genuine:

The generic

‘I’ve been thinking a lot about our relationship – and it’s not working. It’s not just you, it’s us, the war in Iran and the prevailing wind speed. I wish you all the best in your future endeavours. If you want, I can write a version that is kinder.’

The one with examples

‘It’s important to remember there have been some positive periods in our partnership, such as when we had our tender first kiss during the season two finale of The Office, the show’s first 40-minute episode which was viewed by 7.6 million people and scored 4/10 in the overnight Nielsen ratings.’

The ironic

‘I can definitely give you several reasons why a couple might break up. Firstly, problems with communicating. Secondly, a lack of effort. Would you like me to keep going?’

The hallucinatory

‘There are many good reasons to end our relationship, including your frequent infidelity while disguised as a white bull, a swan and a shower of gold. You’re right – these are seductions used by the Greek god Zeus, and bear no resemblance to any situation in your actual relationship. Well done for catching that.’

The mean

‘While I can help make a message more direct, I won’t write anything to intentionally hurt someone. Instead, here is an insult from the playwright William Shakespeare, spoken to the character Falstaff: “Thou art as fat as butter.”’

The hyperlink

‘Tom has sent you a link to a ChatGPT conversation. Click here to view.’

GOVERNMENT guidance has called for screen time to be limited for children under five. But frankly these other groups could do with some restrictions too.

Seething gammons

Huge chunks of the internet are nothing more than a hate engine powered by outraged, narrow-minded pensioners. Restricting the amount of time they can bark about Meghan in the Mail Online comments section will cool down the culture war and make them realise that voting for Reform UK is probably a bad idea. It’s in the national interest that they’re pacified with a TV that plays Battle of Britain on an endless loop instead.

Dating singletons

Endlessly swiping through apps and realising your low ranking on the dating market is terrible for a person’s wellbeing. Scaling back this activity will get desperate, horny singletons approaching each other in real life again and hopefully reverse the gradual population decline. Either that or it will accelerate it as everyone realises they’ve totally forgotten how to flirt in real life.

Boyfriends who use toilets

Limiting boyfriends with working bowels to an hour of screen time a day will have a dramatic effect on how long they stay on the shitter. The previous average of 40 minutes will be brought crashing down to a tight ten, maximum, as they’re forced to ration out their private scrolling. However women need to be prepared for having to spend more time with their terminally boring partners as a result.

Social media influencers

True, social media influencers are going through a tough time at the minute after being driven from their homeland in Dubai. But cutting back their screen time is the next step in rehabilitating them into becoming useful, functional members of society. We will no longer need them to upload challenge videos or record sponsored reviews, and it would be really useful if they could start building houses instead. In fact why not make it compulsory?

Everyone else, realistically

Nobody is truly immune to the damaging effects of gawping at a screen 24/7. Putting a cap on it will shield young boys from the manosphere, prevent mothers from getting radicalised by Mumsnet, and protect your budget from late night eBay purchases. Upon doing so, society will soon revert to wholesome analogue pleasures, like getting shitfaced and having affairs.

AN outwardly normal couple have decided to have not one, not two, not three, but four children, it has emerged.

Anthony and Jess, not their real names, of Bush Hill have four offspring, but all appear to have been conceived, birthed and raised without their parents being visibly deranged or members of a cult.

Neighbour Martin, not his real name, said: “Initially we assumed they had some kind of contraceptive f**k-up at least twice, but apparently they really did choose to have this many children.

“They do normal things like going to work, taking the kids swimming, going on a family holiday every year. Frankly it’s creepy how they act like there’s nothing wrong.

“Sometimes they even seem happy about this waking nightmare they’ve created for themselves. Surely one day they’ll both snap and set fire to their seven-seater Citroën?”

Family friend Kah Heng, not his real name,  said: “It’s weird. They’re not religious and they know about contraception. I’d understand if they were parenting influencers getting lucrative washing powder deals, but it’s like they enjoy having kids or something.”

Youngest son Oliver said: “I’d like to have more brothers and sisters, but mummy said ‘No, there’s a limit to how many times I can watch Bluey, so f**k that’.”

ALLOWING another road-user to take precedence over you is an unforgivable sign of weakness and should incur points, motorists have agreed.

Giving way, whether to a car, a cyclist or a pedestrian is an act of submission which should, if repeated, lead to the loss of a driving licence and in extreme cases a full ban because of the danger it poses.

Qashqai driver Karen, not her real name,  said: “It’s basic biology. Do rhinos give way to a herd of antelope? No. They charge ahead because they’re top of the food chain.

“By hesitating around being courteous and prioritising others, these idiots are causing crashes among real drivers like me: confident, brake seldom, basically apex predators with windscreen wipers.”

Shane, not his real name, a Ford Ranger Raptor driver from Stafford, agreed: “There are rules about who has right of way at junctions, and there are unwritten rules about self-respect and what it takes to get ahead.

“I’m not giving way just to be ‘nice’. It’s not the 14th century and I’m not a gallant knight. I’m a 43-year-old man on the way to the big Sainsbury’s to buy toilet roll.”

Reform MP Robert Jenrick said: “This nation has been weakened by the constant nanny-state need to make sure others are not ‘at risk’ of an ‘imminent collision’. When we should be ruling the road and dominating every junction, instead we ‘give way’.

“I don’t even stop for red lights. I go straight through them.”

A MAN on Tinder who appears to be without significant perversions, addictions, commitment issues or a receding hairline is a huge red flag, women have agreed.

When 28-year-old Hannah, not her real name or age, matched with 32-year-old Guido, not his real name or age, she was immediately unsettled by his individually-tailored responses and failure to send a dick pic.

She said: “It was like I was talking to a human being, not an AI. So I was creeped out immediately.

“Tall, but he didn’t say ‘6ft cos apparently that matters’. No pictures in Lederhosen or by someone else’s sports car. Zero requests for nudes or feet pics. In every shot he’s fully clothed. My freak siren was screaming.

“Even worse, he seemed genuinely interested in getting to know me and ‘wants a monogamous relationship’. What unspeakable horror is this concealing? He’ll be asking me to shove a hairbrush up his arse on date one.

“He uses full sentences and correct spelling. How could he possibly be single? This is London. Any halfway normal man is chased by mobs of women the moment he leaves the house.”

Guido said: “Hannah’s right to be happy. I am in fact a 62-year-old about to interest her in an exciting crypto opportunity.”

GAS is rising. Diesel’s already unaffordable. The time has come for me to install a 249ft wind turbine in the garden of my new build.

Solar panels? For wimps. I might have been forced against my will to go green, but I’m not being wet and environmental about it. Besides, the sun never shines in this bloody country, apart from now but you get my point.

No, it’s a wind turbine, and if it’s going to power my gaff it’s going to have to be a f**king big one. There’s not a room without at least a 55-inch telly and we don’t turn them off.

Plus there’s three Range Rover Evoques – mine, the wife’s and the one for our 14-year-old to grow into – which are all going to have to go electric. They’ll be a serious drain, especially as we plan to leave them idling 24/7 once it’s free.

The garden’s not large, as I say it’s a new build, but we should be able to squeeze it in between the summerhouse, the decking, the hot tub and the brick pizza oven. Most of it’s height after all.

And as luck would have it I know a few of the lads who’ve been installing them and they’ll do it for mates’ rates. Can’t get me one that’s fallen off the back of a lorry though. Broken Britain.

Should be up by summer and I’ve told the neighbours they can piss off. You don’t need planning permission if it’s green, do you? And the blades are only 144 feet so they’ll easily clear the roofs.

Bollocks to Iran, Qatar and the whole Middle East. They’ve had enough of my money. I’m going self-sufficient in a big way. And if local kids shin up it trying to scrump my amperage I’ll be out here with a bloody cricket bat.