IT’S ON its way. That perfectly spooky side of the fast-looming festive season when disparate folk get together to celebrate, skewered pieces of rubbery cheddar, pineapple chunks, soggy pastries, and dodgy wine in hand.
For those of us not blessed with the ability to make the expected ‘gay, witty, drop e’m dead asides and for those desperately retiring little flowers among us who find making small talk at parties about as natural as camel throwing, eating raw herrings, or going topless at a funeral, help is at hand. Here it is, a cocktail crib sheet that gives you a complete range of totally spectacular definitive opening one liners.
Guaranteed, once you drop these little gems into the conversation you will instantly be transformed from a skulking water hole wimp into a walloping wag of the first order.
Note, how to do it is an art in itself. First, wait for a lull in the general chit chat, hold your glass up slightly, as if examining it’s contents then, without taking your eyes off the glass deliver your opening line:
‘Did you know that 98 per cent of car horns beep in the key of F? It’s that easy. Naturally, some folk around you may seem a touch non plussed, especially if they have, until that point, been deep in discussion regarding the perennial Cyprus problem. But fear not. Stand your ground and follow up swiftly with ‘throughout his life, Sigmund Freud had a morbid fear of ferns.’ Let that one sink in for just a millisecond then hit them with ‘and did you know, Marilyn Monroe had six toes on her right foot?’
By this time your cocktail cred level will have soared to bewildering heights and with absolute confidence you can continue to weave seamlessly through the room throwing yourself into any conversation (when and where you feel appropriate) with the following fascinating and totally genuine chatty life lines:
1. The word samba means to rub two navels together – can be used as a quickie warm up one for no other reason than it makes people think about something pleasurable. Well admit it, it’s a damn sight more interesting than coming out with ‘kangaroos cannot walk downstairs’.
2. Formicophilia is the fetish for having small insects crawl on your genitals (there’s always one chap present who looks as if he has this problem).
3. The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds (drop in when devouring your chicken drumsticks).
4. Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks, or else it will digest itself (to be said only while eating a Cyprus-made sausage roll).
5. The term Durex in Australia is a trade name for sellotape. Then you add, as a sort of public service announcement, ‘this, I feel, is something we should all be aware of, especially if planning a visit to the antipodes, in order to avoid considerable embarrassment and physical pain’.
6. Turtles breathe through their bottoms (a general non-specific drop in line).
7. Annually more people are killed by donkeys than in plane crashes (use when someone talks of flying off to Greece or Albania).
8. On average, 100 Americans under the age of 35 will choke to death every year, the result of swallowing the ends of ball point pens (accountants and tax inspectors love this one).
9. Giraffes have no vocal chords (this one is especially good when someone in the party talks about the latest pop idol, of which you have not got the faintest inkling of whom they speak).
10. Barbie’s full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts (used when in the presence of a clinging, flirty piece of youthful arm candy).
11. The electric chair was invented by a dentist (this can be used when the attending an ex-pat function when, inevitably, the discussion will turn to a blow-by-blow retelling of intimate medical procedures).
12. No piece of paper can ever be folded more than seven times (this is one works a treat when some chap insists upon droning on about his stocks, shares, and super pension plans).
13. The first known contraception was crocodile dung, used by the Egyptians in 2000 BC (to be used on the same chap as previous).
14. Most people will use 16,000 gallons of water in their lifetime (except of course my Cypriot neighbour who uses about that amount every week as on a daily basis as she washes her windows, doors, walls, pathway, car, after which she vigorously douses down three quarters of the Yeriskipou section of the highway).
15. Right handed people live on average nine years longer than left handed people (care to be taken with this one in mixed company).
16. Donald Duck comics were banned in Finland because he didn’t wear pants (this is what we call a freely flexible line, can be inserted into the conversation when talk turns to Emporio Armani, politics, weapons of mass destruction, or the price charged by dry cleaners).
17. The 350-mile detour in the Trans-Siberian Railway was caused by the Tsar, who drew in the proposed route on a map using a ruler with a notch missing out of it (that sure is a comforting thought for all residents of Limassol).
18. The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as substitute for blood plasma (as there are always doctors present when there is free drink and food around, this one will appeal to them).
19. Pearls will always melt when they come into contact with vinegar (to be used when confronted by insufferable bitchy female wearing necklace/earrings of same)
Best get moving, start practising, as there are only a few more weeks left before those stiffies (party invites) start to accumulate on the mantelpiece.
