How do you put a price on friendship? Impossible, of course. How much on idiocy? Well, just how much of an idiot are we talking about?

It’s all very well playing successful shows, going out afterwards and drinking a skinful before stumbling home as the sun rises but you’ve got to keep it together, otherwise… well, where’s the excuse in that?!

I blearily opened my eyes the other day and grabbed my phone as usual. Upon seeing 10:54 displayed on the screen, panic began to spread rather rapidly. In one fleeting moment my system had released adrenaline and as the beat of my heart pumped it around my body, I felt it rush to every extremity as a cold wave; in that moment I was awake.

Check in opened at 11:00. At Gatwick Airport. South of London. I was in North-West London.

I jumped up, threw a random assortment of clothes into a bag and hurtled out of the front door, my hangover thickening my head and lying sour in my stomach. Breathlessly I ran up to Harlesden town center, toying briefly with the idea of chancing the trains before deciding to get a cab.

There’s nothing quite like a journey against the clock to prove to you just how powerless you are to influence factors brought about by ones own carelessness. As I stumbled up to the Easyjet check-in desks 8 minutes after check-in had closed, I already knew that there wasn’t a chance that they would let me through. Of course, I protested, a folorn £60 taxi ride makes one less keen to simply accept the inevitable, but in the end, it was another £50 that I had to shell out to change my flight to the next one of the day; that they had a seat available was the only thing that went my way that morning. To make matters worse, as I went to get cash out after checking-in, a bank machine ate my card and, as I remonstrated with the man on the end of the phone, he told me that the bank’s record of my date of birth did not match what I was telling them, that he was unable to help me further, that I should visit my branch… talk about a cherry on top.

Of course, the irony was that I was supposed to have been flying out the previous Sunday and had already changed the flight due to the show played the previous evening. That I had got pissed and missed it was total incompetence. Is there a worse excuse in the book? Not being able to do something because of irresponsibility?! Live and learn, they say.

Of course, telling my friends the truth was the worst thing I had to do; their reaction, to immediately change all of the arrangements to help me get to them was, if not unexpected, characteristicly awesome. Nobody’s pretending that they weren’t annoyed with me, as they should be, but they still hooked me up. I couldn’t be luckier in the people I have in my corner. Arriving at midnight to see all of their faces, some of whom I’d not seen in too long, was one of the best feelings I’ve had in a long time.

So, after all that, what price on my idiocy? At least £200, as it happens, including getting to the house once on French soil. What price on friendship? Not much point in me answering that eh?