Holiday time has nearly arrived and some of us will be fortuitously crashing at our friend's (or their parents') larney beach spots. With but a few simple exercises, one can ensure the removal of such invites forever, and, should one begin to tread down this dodgy path, it is worth making sure that the job is done properly.

In order to become an incredibly irritating house guest over the festive season, a few points need to be noted, some of which I personally reccommend. To really make your efforts count, it is best to stay with a family containing a frumpy mother and a conservative straight-laced father. Should you manage to organise this then you are onto a seriously good thing and your entertainment will be virtually constant. Small tip: select a remote location that is difficult for you to get home from easily - this is so they can't kick you out; choose Genadendal, as opposed to Durban, for example.

If you are lucky enough to be travelling coastwards with your hosts, make sure you instantly take yourself down to the beach for a good two hours as you arrive - this ensures that someone else unpacks the car, sets the house up, and packs the fridge while you kick start your tan. If you wait long enough, a kind member of the host family will probably have made something to eat by the time you return. Flog as many of these freebies near the beginning of the trip while those who invited you are still under the impression that you might consider returning a favour or two in kind.

To really entrench the fact that your invitation was a mistake, make sure you claim ownership of various parts of the house where you sure staying as soon as possible. The largest couch in the TV lounge will quite easily seat three people, but this should become your sprawled-out napping zone. Naps will take place either during the mother's favourite soapie or the father's daily fix of 7'o clock news. If you snore then you get a bonus of ten irritant points.

From personal experience, I can suggest that the easiest way to locate a throbbing vein in someone's forehead is to drive their car into something. I went one better and drove one of their cars into another. Although they will present a calm face and tell you it's ok, behind closed doors they will be gripping each other, cursing and wishing a pox upon your house. It is at this point that you can sense a real possibility in becoming the worst house guest they have ever come across.

But that's not where it ends. If Lady Luck is smiling down upon you, you will be staying with a clean and neat family. This is like shooting fish in a barrel if you have any kind of knowhow at all. It is mandatory to leave damp towels on the bathroom floor, dirty dishes in the lounge, right next to where you messed crumbs on the carpet, and braai-meat juices can swim around a plate for days before they are impossible to clean off. Coke bottles, chocolate wrappers, pie packets and half-drunk cups of tea can all add to the décor.

Initially, the family will clean up after you while grumbling, but their futile attempts at this will result in a truly desirable and automatic human tendency - to leave it there until you tire of mess and clean it up yourself. This is when you really turn the screw and simply pretend the gemors is not there, and encourage its excessive progress around the house. If you wish to take it to a more serious level, then don't flush the loo either.

Lovely lounge decorations. Photo by boingboing.net.

The most powerful weapon in your arsenal comes out of a bottle. Never underestimate what you can get away with while armed with "I had a few too many drinks". Try knocking over the braai and sending sooty coals flying over a just-scrubbed verandah, garden urination, or singing the national anthem at the volume of an Ellis Park rugby fixture at four in the morning. Understand the impact and severity of well-placed vomit puddles, climbing into the wrong bed, or slurred in-depth conversations about religion, politics and your hosts' marriage. Should these fail to extract no more than a whimper, trundle down to the local bar, spread a social lubricant (such as beer), make new friends and invite (at minimum) ten of them back to your hosts' house for din-dins.

By the end of the holiday, should you heed this advice, you will have reduced your hosts to a slobbering crying mess - which means you win. You are officially the worst house guest they have ever had, and you require an entirely new circle of friends to ever get another invite anywhere.

Good news though, you have an entire year to acquaint.