One of my main alcohol-related mistakes has to be completely misjudging my abilities. I would like to say this was in a good way. Say perhaps a tendency to slightly undersell myself or play down my true talents

But unfortunately it would seem quite the opposite is true. Instead of being self-deprecating and unassuming about my skills I find that I'm actually prone to openly broadcasting them, and worse still, displaying them. This wouldn't be so bad save for the fact that the skills I am so keen to showcase often don't actually exist.

Just last weekend I was out with friends when we somehow got on to the topic of party tricks. I have to admit I am not a fan of the whole party trick thing. As impressive as it is to see someone almost choke to death in an attempt to put their fist in their mouth, I do find the whole concept a little bit pointless.

However, despite my apparent disinterest, I didn't manage to quite convey this at the time. Instead I found myself embracing the true spirit of things by declaring, that I too was in possession of quite an amazing skill. And with no persuasion at all I felt the need to substantiate this claim by attempting to balance a bottle of beer on my head. And surprisingly with some degree of success. Yes, I was doing a fine job and the group of people surrounding me did seem to be slightly impressed.

My downfall came shortly after however when I attempted to extend this incredible ability from bottle to glass. Unfortunately the transition was not quite as smooth as I may have anticipated and almost instantaneously the glass went hurtling to the ground smashing into approximately a million pieces. Perhaps somewhat less than impressive.

So following my demise I decided to revert to my original inclination - party tricks are rubbish.