Empty bottles by last_hero (Flickr)

Usually, clearing up after a party is a thoroughly depressing experience. Not only do you repeatedly discover as you open up draws, lift up mats and clean bathtubs that friendship is no barrier to people obeying their natural (and less natural) drunken urges in your flat, you also realise that you’re going to have to carry about thirteen stone of glasses down to the bottle bank, the bag leaking a mixture of stale beer and flat rum and coke onto your left slipper as you go.