"I wanted a mission, and for my sins, they gave me one. Brought it up to me like room service. It was a real choice mission, and when it was over, I never wanted another," murmured Martin Sheen in the film Apocalypse Now.

So it was that I found myself trawling the high street for a ladies leotard and other dubious accessories for a friend's stag weekend.

It was my mission to make sure the groom was thoroughly humiliated at all times. A tough assignment, especially as I've valued his friendship for years and would never want to see him disgraced.

However, I knew his every weakness and was best placed to deliver his undoing. There would be no spiked drinks or chaining naked to lamp posts as that sort of thing was wisely ruled out.

But if the grooms' suitcase accidentally got replaced en route to our destination with assorted fancy dress, then that would be okay.

For a man who lives for fashion, this would be embarrassment enough.

This task got me thinking as to why it is we give the groom such a hard time?

The history of the stag party is believed to have originated with a traditional dinner in ancient Greece where soldiers would toast each other on the eve of a friend's wedding. Quite when this toast turned into 48 hours of hard drinking, cross-dressing and a strip club is unclear.

Generally, the shenanigans of a stag do are seen as a rite of passage from bachelorhood to a more responsible' marital life. Even though it's harder to imagine anything else more potentially damaging to a new marriage.

The scene for our weekend of debauchery was picturesque Prague, the capital city of the Czech Republic, a place that had admittedly got a bit of a bad reputation for marauding stag parties in recent years.

However, on arrival nothing could be further from the truth.

The other stag and hen parties we met were all well behaved and after dark the streets were still bustling with families taking a stroll or out having dinner.

Now when was the last time you could say the same for Bournemouth town centre?

As for any more details of my recent weekend, I'm afraid "what goes on tour stays on tour" as guilt-ridden stags often remark.

The stag weekend is one man's dream and another's nightmare. While there is plenty of scope for crazy antics and reckless abandon, there also lies the potential for broken bones and a night in the cells. Or worse judging from these movies:

  • The Batchelor Party (1984) - Tom Hanks is thrown one final booze-laden bash, which quickly gets out of hand. Notorious for a scene involving a cocaine-snorting donkey.
  • Staggered (1994) - Martin Clunes wakes up the day after his stag night to find himself naked and penniless on a remote Scottish island after a prank from his supposed best friend.
  • Very Bad Things (1998) - A group of friends head to Las Vegas for a bachelor party and someone is accidentally killed. The friends then turn against one another as the cover-up ensues.