Richard Shayler: on birthday blunders and the number fifty

Make a wish

“Happy Birthday dear … psst, psst … what’s her name?! Kate? Abby?” The girl next to me looks at me in disgust. Oh well, I’ll just have to hum it. “Happy Birthday dear … duuuhdahh … happy birthday to you!” Phew, don’t think anyone noticed, apart from that moody girl standing next to me. Uh-oh. Where’s she off to? Oh, dash it; she’s the birthday girl’s sister.

I spent the rest of the day receiving long, condescending looks from every family member at the party. I was also given a piece of birthday cake that looked like it had been iced with spittle and tears. All for forgetting the birthday girl’s name!

My parents signed the card and they also got her The Simpsons slippers, which she hated. I was given no brief on names and had no hand in the buying of her present. I felt wrongly ostracised. I wanted to cry. But it wasn’t my party, so I couldn’t.

I saved the tears for the journey home. With a mouthful of caterpillar cake and an eyeful of tears, I moaned to my family about how unfairly I was treated. They told me to grow up. They also made a very scathing observation that I was the only one at a five-year-old’s birthday party who was crying.

I got home, wiped the final tears off my face and stopped feeling sorry for myself. It made me think how much more enjoyable birthdays are when you’re older. Most of the birthday recipients want little to no indication of how old they are, and even go as far as just having ‘a party’. Not ‘a birthday party’. This alleviates an awful lot of pressure to remember names and make present choices. Alcohol is always a great go-to present, as are items to do with alcohol. Cocktail shakers, corkscrews and quirky bottle openers are unquestionably well received. There’s always a chance the presents you buy will then get opened and shared too. I call this ‘birthday present remuneration’. The birthday recipient calls it getting blind drunk.

I imagine this is what some of the Brighton Lights crew will be doing this week, for we are celebrating a very special occasion … it’s our 50th this Thursday! That’s right, we’ve been on air for fifty shows! I know! I’m as surprised as the rest of you. We’ve got a cake from the lovely gang at The Angel Food Bakery, and party poppers and bunting.

We’ve also got a special show this week dedicated to the Christmas Artists Open Houses. Poet Julie Hall and comedian Zoe Lyons dropped in to give us some presents. Artist Rupert Denyer and The Brighton Dome’s Pippa Smith stopped by to talk art, and The Dome’s Umbrella Project. Comedian Sarah Bennetto made us all laugh and we were dancing around all week in our birthday suits to music by The Lanes.

Watch Wednesday to Saturday at 7pm on Freeview Channel 8, Virgin Media Channel 159 or streamed live online @ www.thelatest.tv. The show’s so good even a few celebs are watching. Yeah, that girl … lives down on the seafront, you know the one? Oh … I’ve forgotten her name!

Follow me: @latestrichard