Does anyone else find the whole 'Happy Birthday' ceremony painful? The lights are turned down, your nose is filled with the smell of burning candles from a pastry-cum-fire hazard, an awkward circle forms around a squirming guest of honour and the assembly drones the happy bloody birthday song atonally, off key, out of pitch, there's a short mumble when we get to the 'dear so-and-so' part when everyone uses their own epithet for the birthday boy/girl and then a quick triple 'hiphiphooray' starting unenthusiastically and waning from there.

It makes me want to tear my own earballs out.