Manly man made miserable at birthday bash

Hod Mancunin of Manly Beach was devastated during his birthday celebrations this week when his friends and family segued into 'Why was he born so beautiful, why was he born at all....?' Says Hod: 'Everything was going so well as they all sang Happy Birthday to me and ended with 3 hip-hoorays. It was just what I wanted to hear after a tough week. A warm glow was creeping over me and I felt such a surge of love and kinship with everyone.' Then came the refrain, asking about why he was born. Really?! To add insult to injury it carried on with 'He's no bloody use to anyone, he's no bloody use at all!' For one thing, Hod was put out by the use of a swear word (bloody) which he felt was totally uncalled for under the circumstances. 'We're not talking about bloody, as in blood on the battlefield here,' avers Hod. 'This is just plain old bad language for the sake of it.' But once started, there was no stopping the flow, despite the look of horror and hurt writ all over the birthday man's face. On they went with 'Here's to Ho-od he's so blue, he's a drunkard through and through. He's a bastard so they say, tried to get to heaven but he went the other way!' In parsing this travesty Hod made the following valid points: 'Firstly, I wasn't blue. On the contrary, I had been very happy, enjoying the closeness of the dearest people in my life. Secondly, I'm definitely not a drunkard, any ways up, through and through or otherwise. Thirdly, I was certainly not born out of wedlock and finally, I've never tried to go to heaven. I've come to believe that attempting to go to heaven is self-defeating. You are either going to heaven or you're not. That's if heaven exists at all, which is very moot.' The refrain ended up with 'drink it down, down, one, two, three....' Hod reminded us: 'Well we are talking about high quality sparkling wine here, that I laid in specially for the party, so there's no way I'm just going to pour it down my throat, right?' Hod has moved on now from the awful turn his birthday endured but he knows there's some emotional damage there and next year he'll be inserting a few caveats on his birthday invitation, if he has one at all. He is consoling himself that at least they didn't sing the one about looking and smelling like a monkey.