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Is An All You Can Eat Competition at a Pancake Day Rave Really Such a Good Idea?

You'd have to be flipping mad to go, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you?!
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Do you ever think you weren't made for this world? Do you ever sit and think, no, I was ejected into the unceasingly awful hell that is earth at the wrong time, in the wrong place. Do you ever think to yourself that we, mankind, the human race, built the pyramids, created underfloor heating, invented microwaveable cheeseburgers and drama and iron lungs and bollards and the concept of shame and the galvanised bin, and as such, we deserve a better world than the one we got? Do you ever stumble across something that makes you long for the sweet embrace of the grave? Us too. Today, it was this:

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Before we go on, a disclaimer: the THUMP UK team don't just spend all day getting depressed about flyers for nights we'll never go to, honestly. Sometimes we even break the day up by sighing deeply and squeezing another coffee out of the machine in the office kitchen. But…but….but, just look at it. Let your eyes soak up the tableau above and think about everything humankind's done up to this point. We have created wonders and mysteries. We have mastered all that's to be mastered. We nailed perspective and the production of bubble bath. That's impressive. That's who we are and what we can do. And now, now in 2016, two thousand years after a beardy bloke snuck out of a cave, this is what we're left with: pancake parties in massive London clubs.

"So Tuesday the 9th is of course Shrove Tuesday, better known to the world as PANCAKE DAY! And for the first time in HISTORY we are throwing a real nuts(ella) party!Yes, 10pm till 3am at the world famous Ministry of Sound!"

There's nothing wrong with pancake day per se, because pancakes are quite nice and getting annoyed about the existence of pancake day makes you the kind of person who thinks that railing against Valentine's Day is an act of radicalism worthy of the class of '68, but there's something deeply, deeply saddening about a day created to celebrate the simple joys of pouring batter into a frying pan, and dropping the resulting tasteless nothingness on the kitchen floor before having a massive strop and vowing to never do it again, being taken for a ride by greedy club owners. Pancake day is for the people! It's ours, fat cats!

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"Celebrating ALL THINGS PANCAKE! WITH SUPER SUPER SUPER CHEAP £3 TICKETS & 400 FREE PANCAKES FOR THE FIRST LOT IN!
And if that is not enough.. we have all the music you can dream off along side a 1AM PANCAKE EATING COMPETITION WITH A £100 CASH PRIZE! YES! (more info below)."

Food and nightclubs don't mix. Because you know that nightclubs are sacred spaces where only a set few things are allowed to happen and any deviation from these is frowned upon by the self-serving community. And also, you wouldn't want to get sauce down your new shirt, and the bouncer'd probably nick a bit of your food and pass it off as a joke and you'd be powerless to do anything because he's the bouncer and it was just a joke and you're the clubber and he's the bouncer and if he says it's banter then it's definitely banter and you'd better suck it up and watch him eat your food. You wouldn't do that, so why would you want to eat a pancake in the club? What possible reason is there for wanting to stand in a nightclub on a Tuesday in Elephant and Castle, holding an alcopop in one hand and a cold pancake in the other. It makes no sense. It is not how we should be. This isn't us. It can't be. This can't be life.

"UK'S BIGGEST PANNY PARTY
500 FREE PANCAKES
EATING COMPETITION
£100 CASH PRIZE
DRINKS FROM £2.50 ALL NIGHT
£3 ADVANCE TICKETS"

When I was younger I refused to eat traditional pancakes. I liked scotch pancakes and looked forward to the occasional Sunday evening when my mother would let me and my brothers eat scotch pancakes in front of the TV. They'd be served on a plate, sopping wet, heaving under the weight of the vegetable spread she'd ladled on them. They tasted like comfort and familiarity and maternal love. When I went to university, I made proper pancakes for the first time. I made pancakes while my friends snorted mephedrone. They did not eat the pancakes, which was good because the pancakes weren't good pancakes. They were tasteless and sad and ugly. I quietly slopped them into the bin and went back to my bedroom. That was the last strong memory I have attached to pancakes. Pancakes, like conservatories or impressionist paintings, are something I have filed in my mental "I Have No Strong Opinion On This Really" folder. Now, though, now pancakes have been defiled and ruined. Now pancakes are the reason why I've read the phrase "PANNY PARTY" and now that I know a PANNY PARTY is something that exists I cannot forget that. It is there. It is permanent. As I lay dying, the last words that fall from my cracked, parched lips will be "I never….I….never….went….to…the….PANNY PARTY" and my relatives will carry that burden with them forever.

"Who ever can eat the most pancakes in 1 Minute WINS! how to get involved:
once you have purchased your £3 tickets here: simply leave your name(s) on the event wall (www.fb.com/milkshakeofficial) OR email us your name & that you want to enter @ Milkshake@ministryofsound.com - 15 people will be chosen on the day of the event & named on the event wall, those must come see us at the box office at the party for their stage pass which will be needed for the Competition!

Good luck, and DON'T PUKE! :)"

Gluttony is nothing to be proud of. Gluttony isn't funny or interesting or exceptional. Gluttony is gluttony and there's a reason why people look down on gluttons. You might watch one of those videos of people eating 45 slices of fried bread in five minutes, or drinking 12 pints of ketchup in ten, and you might laugh, a bit, but you're not laughing because you find it funny or commendable. You're laughing because you don't know how to react to this kind of direct transgression. These people are doing inhuman things to themselves to feel human. They are eating as many pancakes as they can in one minute in a nightclub. They will leave the stage, feeling sick, feeling full, feeling something. They will have been to the PANNY PARTY and they will leave a human being.

So, if you're going to the Pancake DAY rave tonight, think about all that…and try not to puke! PANNY PARTY!!!

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