An Open Letter to Kevin Sharkey, regarding 'Prinking'

Dear Kev, (can I call you Kev? I’d hate for us to get off on the wrong foot, we’re going to be such friends!)

Colloquialisms and slang can catch the best of us out at the worst of times. My housemate from Croydon is the perfect example of this, throwing Saarf Laandan jargon out left right and centre. I’ve finally established that ‘peak’ means bad, but the rest is perplexing at the best of times, and aneurysm-inducing at the worst. However, poor old you really caught a doozy when you discovered the ‘prinking’ craze (or, you know, pre-drinking to us normal folk).

The video where you so erroneously acknowledge the risks of ‘prinking’ can only be described as two minutes of incredibly cringeworthy point-missing. Of course I do accept that it’s your duty as a member of the modern media to stir up controversy where none exists (and if you can fear monger a tad too, then even better – by the way, have you ever considered a job at the Daily Mail?), but bro, I’m sorry to inform you, you have missed the bus to relevance by several decades.

I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume that you’re not entirely linguistically challenged. Otherwise I’d try to simplify my sentences for your benefit. But, us what actually do the ting would like to set you straight, fam. Pre-drinking is far more than just a matter of avoiding the exorbitant bar prices – for students, anyway, it’s not tricky to obtain a quadruple vodka and generic mixer for the resoundingly inebriating price of £2. I’m not denying that getting cheap drinks is a motivating factor, but it certainly isn’t key. Pre-drinking is that extra hour or so of socialising with your friends, where you’re in charge of the music (although this is often far from a perk) and you’re not being constantly browbeaten by the hordes of single ladies clamouring to buy you a drink. Well, maybe not you. But certainly me! Well, actually I’m told it happens. To other people. Oh, cock.

I digress. The point I’m getting at is that it’s all well and good to be able to report on the despicable drinking habits of the degenerative yoof of today, hoodlums that we are, but you might as well get it right. I conducted a brief survey among my housemates as to the validity of the term ‘prinking’, and I was laughed out of the room. One had heard it used previously, but before you depart feeling vindicated, the offending chap was forced perform a sequence of humiliating punishments for using such an abhorrent term. Your use of Urban Dictionary was even more shameful – all you had to do was scroll down and you’d have understood that ‘prinking’ is in fact ‘the action of scratching your chin with your arm over your head‘. The more you know, right?

I’m somewhat constrained by word limits here, so I can’t go on. I’ll just summarise for you again what I’m trying to get at. First, don’t call it ‘prinking’ – it betrays your age, and your children are likely to have already gone to ground to avoid the oncoming humiliation. Secondly, it’s not just about getting an inordinate quantity of alcohol inside you before continuing at the club. It’s about being at a nice level before reaching the destination, keeping you from the potentially extortionate prices, the unending queues and the watered down booze. Hell, pre-drinking could even be said to encourage responsible drinking: after all, once you’ve braved a sixteen-deep bar queue in a club, you’re far more likely to buy multiple drinks just to avoid the carnage in future for as long as is feasibly possible. WE’RE DOING YOU A FAVOUR. It’s also quite nice to just spend some time with your friends in your own space, rather than the hot and sticky confines of a club. Finally, it’s not your job to instantly report on the worst case scenario: just because some ‘prinkers’ take the pastime too far, doesn’t mean it’s dangerous, surely?

Either way, I hope you’ve not taken this too personally. I’m just gently trolling, which is another term you media louts have completely misappropriated. If you could get your facts right before appearing on the national news, that’d be grand. Otherwise, I guess it’s just peak times for you, brah.

Feel free to get in contact if you ever have any questions about the 21st century lingo, LOL.

Love and kisses,

Ed Bannister. xoxo