I’m mad you asked me that question

“How mad are you?” enquired the questionnaire published in a magazine I read in a friend’s house the other day. Given that the madness in question was of the "I’m bonkers, me!" variety as opposed to more mundane mental instability, the fact that I was completing a magazine quiz while sitting on the toilet with my trousers around my ankles probably rendered the question instantly redundant. Nevertheless, I soldiered on.

The quiz listed "30 Things You Should Have Done By The Time You’re 30" and invited readers to gauge how "kerrr-azy" they were by ticking off those milestones they’d achieved, totting up their score and checking to see whether they were - no sniggering at the back please - "rad, a cad, sad, mad or just like your dad." No, really.

Never having considered myself to be particularly adventurous in comparison to several swashbuckling pleasure pioneers of my acquaintance, I did not expect to do at all well. Imagine my surprise then, upon discovering that – without cheating - I had scored a decidedly respectable 21 out of 30, which promptly rocketed me in to the second highest of five categories of zaniness. Indeed, the scoreboard went so far as to guess which particular antics I hadn’t yet got up to, before advising me how best to rectify the situation: "You probably missed out on numbers 1 (had a threesome), 6 (visited a natural or unnatural wonder of the world) and 25 (got fired or told your boss to stick his job), but there’s always time for that. Live it [life] to the full and break into the halcyon hell raiser echelons that you secretly thought you already existed in. You can do it tiger."

As for what you’re all wondering, the answer is an emphatic no - I have never visited a natural or unnatural wonder of the world. Unless, that is, you count the telescope in Birr Castle gardens which, since its recent restoration, has gone from being the world’s largest functionless wooden tube to being the world’s second largest telescope. (Debate continues to rage in throughout the town as to which is the more prestigious accolade.)

I have, however, told a boss to stick his job: he called my bluff and I continue to wonder how the global fast food industry thrives without me. Perhaps it was impetuous of me to point out to him that the parking meter outside on the street earned more money per hour than I did. Nevertheless, I have no regrets.

As for the threesome? Well, I’ve been around the golf course, but I’d rather not comment on the kind of threesomes so obviously in question here. After all, my mother reads this column occasionally and she’d be astonished to learn that I’ve never enjoyed nocturnal romps with more than one woman. An ambivalent sentence if ever there was one.

Needless to say, when opened to the floor once my ablutions had been attended to, the questionnaire in, eh, question sparked considerable controversy and several points of order: "I’ve never actually scuba-dived amongst colourful coral and exotic fish but I have snorkeled, does that count?" enquired one mate in desperation, when it dawned on him that he wasn’t half as mad as he thought he was.

After lengthy deliberations we decided to give it to him, on condition there were no jockeys or GAA players numbered among the six famous people he would need to be on nodding terms with in order to score a point for question 17.

"Can I have one point if I’ve never shagged anyone whose name I didn’t know, but have dragged myself around the room when I was so drunk I didn’t know my own name?" mused another chancer, craftily combining questions number 3 and 12 to good effect. Of course, when it was pointed out to him that he’d once paid for a prostitute (question 2) whose name he didn’t know (question 3), the cocky hoor only demanded a bonus point because he’d completely forgotten about the incident.

While space precludes me from reproducing the questionnaire in its entirety, suffice to say that if you are well traveled, have had a ridiculous hairstyle, lit farts and had extra-marital sex several people whose names you don’t know, while drunk, depressed and smack-ridden in a police cell with loud music playing in the background, then you are the very epitome of hedonism, intemperance and high-living. And, it should go without saying, an unspeakable tosser.

And speaking of hedonism, intemperance and high-living, it was with considerable sadness that I heard of Offaly hurler Johnny Pilkington’s decision to retire in the wake of the Faithful county’s recent championship defeat at the hands of Kilkenny. A man already assured of his own church window in Birr, Johnny’s scintillating skills on the hurling field, willingness to shoot from the lip in hilarious post-match interviews, roguish charm and fondness for fags and porter helped make him a firm favourite of all Irish folk with even a passing interest in the GAA.

Is it too much to hope that somebody in the RTE sports department might take note of his availability, insight, articulacy and comic value, and offer him a lucrative job as a pundit on The Sunday Game immediately? One hopes not. At the very least, he deserves his own chair on Questions & Answers.