We hate nightclubs?

There’s no doubt about it – The Fly By Night loves clubbing.

She has done since the first time her underage feet stepped uncertainly yet triumphantly over the holy nightclub threshold, emboldened by a fake ID and half a bottle of Tequila.

Every clubbing experience is to be valued – from early ventures into your local Ritzy fuelled by alcopops, bad haircuts and the occasional fumble in a dark corner, to the first time you walk wide-eyed into a ‘proper’ club and have a realisation that THIS is what you were supposed to be doing all your life.

Even when you’ve got a good 15 years of clubbing under your belt, and should technically be a hardened old cynic, there are always those moments that remind

you why you do it.

That feeling in your stomach when you’re planning a big night; when the DJ plays THAT tune; or when you’re sitting around with your mates at an afterparty and discussing how walking sticks made from glo-sticks would revolutionise the lives of thousands of pensioners.

The Fly By Night loves it all – even the next day when you feel like your brain has been put through a food processor and you’re starting to look a bit like Edward Scissorhands, you still have that feeling of satisfaction that only a good night out can bring.

However, The Fly By Night knows that clubbing is not for everyone.

And in truth, it’s a good thing – you hardly want to bump into your Dad at Jaded now, do you?! So it’s time to pay homage to someone who puts their case against clubbing so eloquently, that however much you love it, you just can’t attempt to mount

a counter argument.

So The Fly By Night will (for once) keep quiet and let Guardian columnist Charlie Brooker take the floor to explain why he’d rather stay at home punching himself in the face than go clubbing – and perhaps secretly admit that there may even be a modicum of truth in there somewhere…

Charlie Brooker lets rip on www.guardian.co.uk

Originally written for www.endclub.com