Yesterday, we were in Derby for a friends birthday party - Ben (of World Memory Champion 2004 fame). It had nearly everything you need for a birthday party - a huge bowl of punch, silly party games, jelly, and an assortment of alcohol (including lots of Squashed Frogs).

Very little of the jelly seemed to get eaten. Some of it was used as a forfeit in the game of pass the parcel (where a challenge or forfeit was included in each layer). Some evil person (most likely Emma) decided that I should snort some jelly from a teaspoon. It was really unpleasant.

Possibly the highlight of the evening were the indoor fireworks. Thankfully, Ben's smoke alarm doesn't seem to work very well otherwise we might have set it off. The fireworks were accompanied by a ridiculously surreal story involving smugglers/pirates, monkeys, a giant spider and a dragon. At various parts of this hilarious tale, we stopped and lit a particular firework. The sparklers were ok, the spider and dragon were crap, the smoking monkey was worse than crap. It was rescued by the treasure chest, which exploded, firing photocopies pennies into the air!