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Make a playlist, buy in some nice crisps and save the house party from extinction

Everyone wants to go to a house party, as Stormzy says, but no one wants to host one. But it is time to make the effort…

It takes a while to commit, for me – I need a bit of a run-up, four or five conversations just before sleep, two or three reasons to celebrate, the casual dangling of the possibility to a handful of friends, before I set a date and make a playlist and finally, with great ceremony, put out the nice crisps. Here’s where you will wander into a conversation too deep for your pay grade, but if you nod a little, your breath warming the air, you’re allowed to stay and sober up as the wisest story you’ve ever heard slides into your ear and finds somewhere to camp out for three to eight years until the quiet day you need it. Cocktails are born here, from tequila and the dregs of lonely squash bottles, as are 2am snacks, as are relationships – this is the last place on Earth left to meet somebody in real life, to actually lean in and touch their arm, and still, still house parties are dying?

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