OH, what a to-do about dos. I should, at the outset of this thesis or lecture, define my terms. I don’t mean any old do. I mean stag and hen dos.

You roll your eyes. Yes, everybody hates them. Everybody’s been on one. A “do”, if I might hold up the narrative further with footnotes, is a more homely term for “party”, the most frightening word in the English language. I dread them all: house (the worst), dinner, birthday, political.

It’s nearly 20 years since I was at a house party, apart from one small gathering of seven, and that was in my own home so I couldn’t get out of it.

The one 20 years ago did, however, afford me a most delicious experience of freedom. It came after I decided I had to get out, and so dreeped doon a bathroom drainpipe and made good my escape.

The party house was near the sea and, as I breathed in the heady maritime ozone and left the suppurating racket behind me, I felt like an animal freed from captivity. That’s why I peed all over the street: marking my territory, don’t you know?

I don’t know what it is about parties that makes me so uncomfortable. I seem to get overwhelmed by all the hubbub and the faces, and the way that normally reserved and decent people mutate into gregarious performers. I take them aside and whisper urgently in their ear: “What on Earth has got into you? Enjoying yourself like this!”

When someone shouts “Party!” in gleeful anticipation of same, there arises in my gullet a tsunami of vomit that I’d gladly spray all over the speaker.

So, where do I stand on stag parties? I am, of course, against them. Yet I will own that they’re not so bad as house parties since at least they usually take place in pubs, where I’m generally happier among all the hubbub and faces. Odd, that.

I think it’s because gregarious performance in pubs is more subdued and less intimate. Pubs can even be quite miserable and so are a more authentic and enjoyable reflection of human life.

However, I speak of stag parties in the past tense, before the more recent trend of dressing up and themes, which are not for the likes of us. And, indeed, not for the likes of decent ratepayers in cites prone to hosting them.

The gaudily attired participants tend to over-indulge and to become raucous, leaving ordinary, decent drunkards to have fits of the vapours and wish they’d all pipe down.

I say all this as preamble – yes, here it comes, the point! – to news that tourism chiefs and holiday firms are reporting that betrothed individuals are ditching the single-sex lash-ups in favour of more civilised joint nights out as they don’t want to split up their friendship groups.

But surely this goes against the whole point of such proceedings? It’s supposed to be the “last night of freedom” for both adversaries. After they’re hitched, they can have joint dos or, more likely, dinner-parties. Oh dear, I’m going to up-chuck again … .

Dinner parties: more grown-up affairs in which small groups of smugly normal couples drink a modicum of wine and eat food soaked in over-rich, cloying sauces from recipes misread in big books written by celebrity chefs.

But, before that, there’d be the “sten do”, as the new joint stag-hen parties have been dubbed (presumably in preference to “hag do”). Let me give you the facts of life: men behave differently when women are around – they act like prats – and I’m sure the opposite holds true too. The reason is that they’re hoping to place their legs in a position not unadjacent to those of the person of the opposite gender.

Ultimately, this can lead to marriage, meaning more sten dos and the increased disruption of normal drunken life in our city centres. And so it goes on. And it will continue to do so while the current regrettable method of human reproduction remains the norm.

ANTIQUES Roadshow host Fiona Bruce has voiced her frustration at the reserved reaction of members of the public whose artefacts are given large valuations.

Discerning a British dislike of talking about money, she says in yon Radio Times: “When someone is given an absolutely stonking value they tend to say ‘Hmmm’. Whereas in the American version, people actually faint … It’s a bit frustrating.”

I get her point … up to a point. In fact, in Britain, part of the show’s attraction is watching lucky members of the public trying to cover up their elation and surprise.

Get it wrong and the video goes viral, resulting in your becoming an outcast in your community, despite being the proud owner of a £35,000 antique ear wax remover once used by Bonnie Prince Charlie.

If you’re planning to take your allegedly Victorian potty or Sumerian Post-It note to a roadshow, my advice is to keep a stiff upper lip at the valuation. If it’s a biggie, try not to faint. Then, on returning to the privacy of your own home, run round the living room punching the air and shouting, “I’m rich! I’m ruddy rich!”

HERE’S a funny – peculiar – thing I saw in Inverness recently. A woman in a car (nearly said “lady driver” there: hate speech!) must have taken a wrong turn into the bus garage.

It’s easily done. But it was the bizarre reaction of a station official in a yellow, hi-vis jacket that made onlookers’ jaws drop open. He went nuts. I mean absolutely raging. I thought he was going to kick the car.

The reason I mention it is that the same thing happened to me, many years ago, in Dunfermline. All Scottish town centre roads are designed by sadists having a laugh. They go out of their way to send you out of your way.

In Dunfermline, I was looking for somewhere to park and took a wrong turning into the bus garage, and this operative went crazy. I mean absolutely, psychopathically furious.

Is there something peculiar in the water at bus garages? Maybe they occasionally get problems with car drivers dropping folk off? But even that would hardly merit such vein-popping apoplexy. And, in both of our cases, we were clearly lost and hadn’t dropped off anyone.

The rage is very Scottish, of course. But that’s no excuse.

I CANNOT pretend to have heard The Big Moon’s music. It’s not because they’re an all-female band, obviously. I was a big fan of pioneering feminist combo, The Slits.

It’s just that there’s nothing new to listen to anywhere. I’ve given up. All been done, folks. Every lick, hook and melody: my generation got there first. Hang on, getting a message in my earpiece: “You’re talking bilge. Again.”

Fair point. Indeed, I love recent stuff by Myrkur and, among her YouTube videos, Jonna Jinton. And it’s not because, by chance, they’re both beautiful Scandinavian blondes (getting to the stage where I have to apologise for every other sentence here; wonder if I could transition into being a female columnist?).

Interestingly, both these artists work with ancient melodies and instruments. Speaking of the latter, and returning to The Big Moon, singer Fern Ford said: “When you see bands smash guitars it breaks my heart. I hate it.”

Oh, well said, madam (sorry, etc)! I always hated that too. Such a waste. A destruction of beauty. I love my own guitar and take care of it. Unfortunately, it still refuses to play tunes.