Have a Shitty Weekend

(Photo by Bruno Bayley)

Why would anyone live for the weekend? It’s just more hours. More hours you have to figure out something to do in. More hours you have to whittle away to keep yourself sane. More hours to stay awake before you go back to sleep. More hours for your internal organs to pump and flap around inside the dermal water wing you dare call a body. Fuck the weekend. In my view, the weekend should be as monumentally depressing and shit as possible. Why strive for the puppy-like emotion of perpetual glee when you can have the much more human sensation of unrelenting disappointment and deeply refined sadness?

All is not lost, friends – I’m here to guide you. I’m here to show you that it doesn’t all have to be house parties, raves, that band you've always wanted to see or doing pleasant things with a loved one. It can be just as tedious and stable as the rest of the working week.

So, here's a guide to having a shitty weekend, this weekend. Don't thank me. See you bright and early on Monday.

"More Than Just Bublé", Sat 7 Dec, St Andrews Stadium, Birmingham

Take a trip down to Birmingham City FC’s stadium to enjoy an evening of what we can only assume is a bunch of people no one has ever heard of singing Michael Bublé songs. But, as the name suggests, it really is "more than just Bublé". The event blurb boasts impersonators doing all your favourites – from the likes of Welsh lothario crooner Tom Jones to American lothario crooner Frank Sinatra. And for those of you with more "diverse tastes", kick back and enjoy tributes to acts as varied as Kings of Leon and Olly Murs.

Essentially, you'll be sitting on a plastic chair in Birmingham, outside, in the winter, watching cover versions of the 2009 Top of the Pops Christmas special. Life doesn't get much flatter.

A groovy baby (photo via)

Groovy Babies Disco: Christmas Extravaganza, Sat 7 Dec, Arc, Newcastle
1PM – 3PM £6 (1 adult, 1 child, extra £3 for each additional child)

This one could go either way. Picture it: You’re coming down hard and it's reached that time where another pinger just isn't going to cut it. You're wandering around Newcastle, cultural hub of Europe, and you see it: Groovy Babies Disco.

At this point, one of two things will happen: the natural endorphin rush of being around small children will ease the pain of your comedown, and the sight of their comically tiny shoes lined up in a row near the door will fill your strangled heart with a semblance of hope.

Or, more likely, your brain will gasp for a serotonin release, and as you peer into the eyes of these babies – these innocent little skin buckets – you’ll wonder, 'Where did all that time go?' Chances are that one day this lot are going to be just like you, sweating around a town centre trying to find the next kick because the prospect of anything else will make you question why you even bother going out in the first place. Their innocent smiles turn your stomach – why can’t you be intrinsically happy and carefree? Why is it you who has to watch as your friends drift away, as people start to die, as everything changes despite how desperately you resist it? You’re a pallid fucking mess and you just vomited on a toddler's head. Nice one, mate.

(Photo via)

The Candlelight Club, Sat 7 Dec, Secret Location

If you're one of those people who labours under the misapprehension that England was better off during the Blitz, the Candelight Club might just be the place for you this weekend.

There might not be the food rations and systematic bombing campaigns that gave London its unique sense of glamour in the early 1940s, but at least you can freely converse with other 24-year-olds who smoke corncob pipes and dress like Biggles, or girls who buy their clothes from the most moth-eaten corners of Beyond Retro. And you can do all while dancing to a soundtrack of "live period jazz". Which doesn't sound as bad as the other thing on the bill: "vintage DJ action". Which I'm going to assume is a man who puts wax in his moustache mixing The Ink Spots on a pair of gramophones.

Have a shitty weekend.

Follow Joe on Twitter: @joe_bish