Each previous house party we've had has presented its own special, stressful challenge to us – there was the first one, the housewarming, subtitled "Does anyone from halls remember who we are, or is our friendship sphere now only the size of four flatmates and the family from the corner shop?"

Then there was New Year, otherwise know as "Can we find enough people without any decent plans on 24 hours' notice to create our own decent plan and pretend it was happening all along?"

And the most recent effort at Easter, fondly remembered as "Oh look, Haringey Council has paid a visit. And they haven't even brought a bottle, the cheek of it."

This time, we decided to turn over some of the pre-party hassle to the guests. Fancy dress.

Everybody loves fancy dress.

Just to make it as alienating as possible, let's do something nice and obscure that people will have to spend loads of money on, and risk incurring our judgment for historical inaccuracy… and if it just happens to perfectly accommodate a dress Lauren already has in her wardrobe and needs an excuse to wear again, well, all the better.

Thus, we end up creating a 1920s speakeasy, in our distinctly 1970s kitchen, complete with gin cocktails in china teacups ("nobody will break the teacups," says I) and plates of fondant fancies, which we agree F. Scott Fitzgerald would definitely have eaten, if he'd paid a visit to the 99p store on Camden High Street and forced himself to walk away from the bargain litre jar of sauerkraut.

The Bugsy Malone soundtrack is playing on a loop and we have stumbled across a new house philosophy: if you are going to fail in life, it is far better to do so wearing a comedy moustache.

We devise a new house philosophy on average once every two days. Recent revelations have included:-

"Health is not directly, but, in fact, inversely, proportional to the number of Value peppers fermenting in the fridge drawer.

"If we have them, it is because we are NOT eating them", and "Despite its seemingly mythical capacity for holding the unwanted contents of our lives, a time will come when the upstairs airing cupboard revolts and drops a Hoover on your head."

Of everyone, I am perhaps the most antsy during the party run-up. This is because I am a fancy-dress fascist.

As a devoted follower of the sacred art, I won't hold for any lacklustre efforts.

"The lapels on that suit are really more '30s, Gerald… tights, Marjory?
"Someone hasn't done their research… JEANS?

"I suggest you go home and think about what you've done".

Worst of all are the fancy dress philistines, people who just wear their newest Urban Outfitters purchase and claim to have come as Mrs Jenkins who lives three doors down from their mum.

And, of course, there's the modern ruling that fancy dress, no matter the theme, must be creatively twisted to allow everyone to look as much like an underpaid lapdancer as possible – or, as it's put in Mean Girls, voice of all sociological truth, "It's the only time of year when girls can dress like a complete slut and no other girls can say anything about it. The hardcore girls just wear lingerie and some form of animal ears."

It's one of my secret ambitions to crack upon a theme with absolutely no sexy clauses, no possible opportunity for hotpants.

Currently, I believe it's a toss-up between Benedictine monks, circa 1450, and Tory cabinet ministers, 1850 to present day, but I'll feedback once they've been roadtested at various branches of Walkabout up and down the country.

Back to the 1920s, and I am finding disappointingly little to critique in the succession of mobsters and molls marching through the door.

Flatmate number three is dressed in a blazer, straw boater and prefect's badge, shouting "Smythe, assume the position!" and waving a wooden cane.

Upstairs, a gang of hoodlums are wailing along to A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square. Nobody is wearing hotpants.

And everybody has broken the teacups.

-------------------------------------
Click here for more Lauren Bravo.

Where are you? Add your pin to the Herald's international readers' map by clicking here.

Email the Herald: letters@worthingherald.co.uk