A young man begins a story at a dinner party: “Thank God my alarm didn’t go off today.”

“Why’s that?” someone in the group pipes up. “Cos he had Julia Roberts in bed with him” someone jokes. “No, no cos he had Julia Roberts AND Elle McPherson there” his mate chimes in.

“Listen you arseholes…” the man tries again, “if my alarm had gone off today…” but no one can hear him through the laughter. “If my alarm had gone off today then…” he looks around again and waits for attention to settle on him, eventually it does.

“You see” he starts “last night I laced the wine for tonight with with poison…but I felt guilty and thought I’d wake early and switch it back. But after listening to you lot for the last few hours I’m so glad I didn’t”. He looks around at their frozen faces, “so very glad.” Then he takes one last gulp to finish his glass.