Day 31: A vivid memory (#BEDM).

My Hag Do was one of my best days ever.

Stag + Hen = Hag.

I went to amazing trouble to provide something that was local, cheap, original and fun. Too many stag dos now are really ridiculous: Self-indulgent, expensive, unreasonable and unjustifiably over the top. Bridal couples seem to expect as a matter of course that now, rather than a night out or whatever, you have to go on a short holiday to an expensive foreign country, incurring hotel bills, flight costs without even considering the exorbitant fees for the go-karting, paintballing, food and booze. It’s painful and a little bit selfish.

I wanted none of it.

Hag Day 2008 was a day of fun in Brighton. We met on the beach, in teams of 5-8. I provided each team with a bottle of booze, a disposable camera and a list of 100 challenges. The premise?

Choose 30 challenges and record them on your camera. Easy challenges earn low points, hard challenges earn high points. Combining challenges in a single photograph can win you mega super points.

For example:
Re-enact Riverdance would be low scoring. Too easy...
Remove furniture from a house dressed as a burglar- high points. Much more challenging.
Kicking a cripple, then kidnapping their pet whilst dressed in newspaper clothes... mega points. You could practically win with one photograph if you achieved that.

Dressed as a monarch, stealing a dog.

Of course, no-one had to actually attack a cripple. You just had to get creative and courageous with your photographs, and simulate each challenge in a pleasing way.

But it was genius. I thought of everything... I even put our local, cheap and student-friendly photography development place on high alert for several rounds of bizarre photograph submissions, primed and ready, for the 4pm cut off.

Blagging their way into the doughnut shop.

Then teams got a text with submission instructions- to arrive on the beach at 5pm with their completed photo-assignment, dressed as... BACOFOIL ROBOTS!

Bacofoil robots convene on the beach.

It was the best day ever. Some people lamed out a bit, and some went completely fucking all out!

Then, to top it off, I hired a venue for a party, where we did an awards ceremony and drank and danced the night away. It was frickin’ awesome.

Collecting stamps and performing a 

sacrifice in a newspaper outfit.

I didn’t even get that wasted, because I was concentrating on seamless organisation and orchestration throughout the day. A bit sketchier in the evening, when i was made to drink beer (bleurgh!) and wear a bra (woop!), and do some challenges of my own.

But so the most awesome day ever.  I loved it and I really should organise another someday soon...

breaking into school in the holidays to make rude art.

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The challenges? I won’t recount them all, but highlights include:

Re-enact the feeding of the 5000
Simulate sex in a public place
Celebrate Christmas (it was May)
Disgust me
Torture a cuddly toy
Be a gimp
Prick up your ears
Kiss a copper
Impersonate a monarch
Steal candy from a baby
Get a job
Sell something
Make doughnuts
Backstreet gambling den
Play a game with a pensioner
Carry more than 1 passenger
Organise a large-scale piggyback derby
Find your sinister evil twin
Food fight with strangers
Steal a pet
Take something back that costs less than 50p
Dress age-inappropriate
Dance off with a stranger
Food fight with a member of the public
Go dogging
Take something back that you’ve blatantly eaten
Dance with a very short man
Create some art
Pay child fare
Start a band
Dine out in fancy dress
Pour water over a stranger
Hold something dangerous
Eat something horrid
Old lady holding inappropriate sign