There are a few rules that should be adhered to when indulging an occasional champagne habit. Rule Number 1: It's best not to order champagne if you can't afford to, even when said champagne is the least expensive stuff on the list, writes Róisín Ingle
I broke Rule Number 1 in a most embarrassing fashion recently. We were celebrating a monumental musical event at the time. OK, so we had just been to a Rick Astley gig. But if you loved him like my companion for the evening did back in the 1980s, you would totally understand the need for a celebration. Once, she actually wrote to his grandmother asking her to put in a word for her. She wants to remain nameless. Obviously.
Even more gorgeous than in his Stock/Aitken/Waterman days, Astley performed a storming set of covers that included a bit of Deano and a lot of Sinatra. He even did a cheeky little version of his biggest hit Never Gonna Give You Up. How we screamed.
At the end of the gig, we rushed down to the front of the stage with all the other shameless 30-somethings as he shook our sweaty paws and looked right into our eyes. I hadn't been that moved since I first saw the video for Last Christmas, particularly the bit where George Michael drops a crucial bit of tinsel, thus locking eyes with his erstwhile lover, whom subsequent events have taught us he wouldn't have fancied in real life.
We were on a high as we left Rick, and it wasn't our fault that we passed a bar on the way home where we knew we could toast our brush with the cream of 1980s pop with a trip down the Champagne super-nova. The last time we had been to the Dublin club Renards we could have sworn a glass of the cheapest champagne on the list had cost €10 a glass. And we had exactly €20. Ah, the serendipity of it all.
Well, yes. Until we order the champagne and it's being poured and we have kind of drunk half of it by the time the barman gets around to handing us the bill and actually it turns out the cheapest glass of the fizzy stuff is now checking in at €15. That'll be €30 girls. Oh dear.
The manager was very understanding. He even helped us count out the five and 10 cent coins found in hitherto unexplored crevices of our handbags as the bemused bar staff looked on. An urgent call was made to the brother at this point. He refused to bail us out, suggesting the experience might teach us a lesson and unhelpfully reminding us about the last time we had called into the same club for a glass of champagne "for the road".
We had just enough money for our two glasses of champagne that time. Not only that, but actor Patrick Bergin just happened to be nursing a drink right beside us. She who will not be named was also in attendance that night and worryingly revealed she harboured a bit of a crush on Bergin back when he played the wife beater in Sleeping With The Enemy.
No matter how much I told her it was him, she wouldn't believe me, which is how I wound up asking him if he wouldn't mind telling my friend he really was Patrick Bergin. "Yeah, right," she sniffed when Mr Bergin introduced himself. He had to practically do a mime of the bit in the film where he fishes Julia Robert's engagement ring out of the toilet before she would believe him.
Eventually, she was persuaded, and, thanking Mr Bergin for his patience, I clinked my full-to- the-brim glass of champagne in his direction and said cheers. At which point a delighted Mr Bergin took the glass from my hand and said "that's very kind of you". Rule Number 2: Don't wave full glasses of champagne at celebrities, because they might think you are rewarding them with your hard-earned bubbly as a token of your admiration, and not just saying cheers.
On the occasion of breaking Rule Number 1, we did eventually manage to get the money together using some long-lost card my bubbly buddy had found at the bottom of her bag. Sensibly, we vowed never to return to the celebrity haunt, at least until we had enough spare cash to buy two more glasses of champers and thus prove to the manager we weren't total chancers.
Strolling nonchalantly past the bouncers the other night, we retained our cool until spotted by one of the managers, who shouted over, "have the right money this time, do you?" Not the most elegant of entrances.
Once inside, we downed our solitary glass as quickly as possible and then a generous man with gorgeous kids - he showed us their pictures in his wallet - decided on a whim to buy us a whole bottle of the stuff. It seemed rude not to accept. Rule Number 3: It never champagnes but it pours.