There were some hoots of drunken male laughter scattered around the room like tiny explosives, which my confused, befuggered brain took as a sign of encouragement.

‘Oh, and Robbo, so cocksure, aren’t you, entering every room scrotum-first. Well, guess what? And this goes for all you steroid-addled ex–footy players. Your trophy wives tell you they’re at Pilates in the mall, but they’re really meeting their toy boys. A much more effective way to strengthen the pelvic floor, apparently.’

Every head in the room was now tilted towards me in a hyper-alert way. The audience blinked and blinked at me, like a giant, multi-eyed insect. But I just couldn’t read the signs; and to be honest, not even an intensive course in advanced semaphore could have helped me now.

‘To my own kids – I would take a bullet for you both, you know that, but being your mother is like being an unpaid PA to two pushy A-listers. It’s my own fault. I’ve s . . . s . . . spoiled you rotten.’

The mic gave a croaking gasp, like the cough of a dying man, as Harry unplugged it. But the room was so quiet my voice still carried, clear as a bell.

‘Zoe, I love you to pieces, pumpkin, but just to be clear, you are not a multi-millionairess top model accidentally trapped inside the body of a girl in the burbs. You’re bright but lazy. If you use your gap year merely to Instagram photos of yourself pouting, then forget uni; you’re clearly headed for a career gyrating in your pants in a lap-dancing club.’

There was an indignant gasp from the head of the P & C, Debbie Darlington, another of my ‘besties’.

‘Oh, shut up, Debbie. You let your fifteen-year-old get botox! When she next asks for botoxed lips you should give her a good smack about the chops . . . But then again, would she be able to feel it?’

I cackled at my own quip, not noticing that nobody else was laughing. The alcohol had made me totally oblivious to the fact that I was no longer a shoo-in to win ‘Ms Popular of the Peninsular’ this particular year. But once I’d started mouthing off, I just couldn’t stop. All my pent-up frustrations were exploding out of me like uncorked champagne. Two or three bottles of truth serum will do that to you; after all, drunken words are only sober thoughts.