This rant is actually more a confession that anything else; it’s a confession to something that each and every raver is guilty of, and if, having read what I have to say, you deny that you too are culpable, then you, Miss/Mr Raver, are either a liar or an amputee.

What am I talking about? Amputees? Wilfred Owen? Midget Porn?

None of those really. I’m talking about that moment, in the middle of a sweaty, heavy set in your favourite club, when you get carried away with your ‘dancing’ (or having spasms to a beat), and you make the foolhardy decision to conduct the orchestra of ravers around you by raising a hand in the air and pointing in the direction of the DJ.

Once your hand is up there, you’ve got keep it up for at least 30 seconds, otherwise all the other hands will laugh at you. These 30 seconds can last a long time. It’s your job to move your hand to the beat, to understand perfectly what the DJ is doing, and to know your tunes so well that your hand, not usually accustomed to this level of scrutiny, will not look silly at all.

Sadly, if you can’t fulfil all of these parameters, you’re in trouble. You’ll start doing some kind of odd hand-waving thing, similar to when you were a keen primary school kid, desperately trying to get the teacher’s attention because you were desperate for the toilet.

At this stage, you have two choices: either lower your hand and hope no one saw, or (and this is a risky strategy) raise your other hand and try to redeem yourself with a bit of funky arms-up dancing/maybe even a cheeky clap. Sod it. Why don’t you just whip your shirt off, jump up on stage and go the whole hog? Chuck in cartwheel for good measure, maybe even a bit of belly-dancing.

Please note that the latter course of action should only be pursued by complete bell-ends wearing sunglasses. Everybody else should just try to blag their way through any potentially embarrassing hand exposure.

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