Congratulations, if you please, to my good friend Mr Samuel T Ewins, who is getting married in a few weeks’ time. Whatever my own feelings on the institution of marriage and the people who enter into it right now, it’s always a good thing to see two people find each other, fall in love and want to publicly declare their intention to spend their lives together. So congratulations to Sam and Helen, who will be tying the knot very soon.

Tonight it was Sam’s stag night. Rather like myself on my own stag night, Sam had no desire to end up chained to a lamppost, vomiting blood, resisting arrest and babbling about invading aliens, or whatever it is that stereotypes do on their stag nights. Instead, he decided he wanted to gather together a bunch of friends and do some of the things we mutually love the best. This meant board games, curry and poker, interspersed with wine, Coke and coffee.

We started the day with a friendly game of Ticket to Ride. After I purchased it on a whim some time back now, it’s become one of our most consistently-played games. This is thanks in part to its simplicity to play but its surprising depth. It’s also a completely different experience depending on how many people you have to play with. And not only that, its simplicity means that it’s easy to teach to new people, making it an excellent gateway game for people who’ve never gone beyond traditional staples such as Scrabble and Monopoly.

I won. This is cause for celebration, as I don’t often win. And in a five-player game, too. Five-player Ticket to Ride is a pretty fraught experience, as the board fills up a lot quicker than it does usually. This means that rather than taking your time to amass a huge number of cards as you can in a three-player match, you generally have to jump in and claim the important routes quickly whilst taking care to not broadcast your intentions to the other players. This isn’t always easy. There’s an element of poker-face amongst experienced players, but sometimes you can’t resist yelling an obscenity into an opponent’s face.

Next up we played Agricola. I’m normally complete shit at this game, so I tried a new tack to what I normally do, which clearly doesn’t work. I ended up coming second for once. Of course, this may have had something to do with the very different dynamic the five-player game has. I’m chalking it up to my new strategy. Which inevitably won’t work next time I try it. But oh well; I have to take what I can get in that game! It’s a great game, I just suck at it pretty consistently.

Then we went for curry. We tried a new place in town called the Coriander Lounge (I think) which was quite expensive but really, really good. Took quite a while for the food to arrive, but it was good when it did. I had a lamb madras which was just the right level of spicy, and the lamb in it was cooked to perfection. Lamb in takeaway curries is often rather tough and overcooked, but this was beautiful. Flaked apart with a touch of the fork and was lovely and juicy.

A couple of the others went for a dish I forgot the name of, but which was served on a large plate with lots of smaller dishes atop it. Each dish contained what was basically a “sampler” for several different curries. It was a nice idea and I found myself wishing I’d had that when I saw it! The madras was good, though. (Do you capitalise “madras”?)

Then we went back to play some poker. I fared less well than last time thanks to some unfortunate draws and more than a couple of things weighing on my mind at the time. But at least I wasn’t first out. I was, um, second. Still, it remains good fun. And the experience of playing in person truly makes me wonder how it is in the slightest bit possible to play online, given that you have no real way of reading other people or “bullying” them. Still, online poker is a hugely successful industry and popular pastime, so perhaps there’s something I’m missing.

So it was a good night all round. Managed to keep my mind off things that are bothering me. And I think Sam had the night he was hoping for. I call that a success.