The morning after the night before

As we sit in the hotel waiting for our transfer to the airport, I'm tempted to have one last drink to toast my holiday. But my liver has other ideas, since I've treated it with about as much consideration as Bernard Matthews has for poultry.

Despite the excessive alcohol consumption during this particular holiday, I'm happy to report that I've managed to avoid the sensation of drinker's remorse - localised amnesia and a head that feels like it's filled with wet sand.

To be fair, it's taken years of practice to get to this point, something that 18-year old Jessica Falter will eventually find out.

She's been in the news this week because her high school prom got a little out of control. Actually, the prom was fine, it was Jessica that went off the rails, with a meltdown that made Carrie White look like the perfect prom date.

For American teens, the prom is an important rite of passage - a night of gaudy gowns, rented limos, wilting corsages and spiked punch. But going by the police reports posted on Smoking Gun, it looks as though Jessica went straight from the hair salon to the punchbowl.

Police in North Ridgeville, Ohio were called after several people had complained about Jessica's inebriated state. When they asked Jessica how much she'd had to drink, she gave the least convincing denial since Shaggy, yelling "You are fucking bitches, this is my prom, I'm not drunk."

Perhaps sensing that the impending Breathalyzer test might prove otherwise, the prom princess picked up a chair and began swinging it defensively, only to smash it into her own face. In the end, the police had to carry the blood-soaked, obscenity-yelling mess out to their car. That's when she "cleared her throat and spit a bloody ball of spit" at Officer Kyle Gelenius.

Her classmates' lasting memory of the night will no doubt be the sight of her sitting in the back of a police cruiser, kicking at the windows and spitting blood all over the place. Still, at least she had her magical evening immortalised in a lovely photo showcasing her triumphant hair-do. Although I'm not sure that a mugshot was quite what she'd had in mind.