New Year's Eve in London: the best last-minute parties

Perhaps you are a New Year-naysayer; remember that most things are rendered at least bearable by alcohol. Accept the minicab journey will take ages and cost thrice its value; accept that you will be cold. Worse things happen at sea — be stoical.

But pick your event carefully. A boozy meal is in many ways an ideal New Year’s Eve: you stay in one place, have some food and get roaringly drunk — red-faced, expansive, truly merry — and then roll home. The Polpo restaurants are open for New Year’s (six restaurants in London, polpo.co.uk), and the Pembury in Hackney has tables all night, and a live band playing all night (90 Amhurst Road, E8, @PemburyTavern).

Alternatively, use a meal as a pre-lash: Bubbledogs in Fitzrovia is throwing a “Pit Stop Champagne Party”: £35 per person for a 90-minute timeslot from 6pm till midnight, which buys you two glasses of champagne, a hot dog and unlimited sides (70 Charlotte Street, W1, bubbledogs.co.uk) and Bourne & Hollingsworth is having a house party at the B&H Building in Clerkenwell: the evening starts with a meal and a drinks reception, then segues into a (hopefully) debauched session of dancing (42 Northampton Road, EC1, bourneandhollingsworth.com).

Obviously, eating is cheating — you could sidestep the meal and just head straight for the club. Avoid risks and go for some friendly pop: the Forum in Kentish Town is throwing a Guilty Pleasures evening, which promises power ballads and “riotous fun” (9-17 Highgate Road, NW5, o2forumkentishtown.co.uk). Cooler friends will seduce you east: Horse Meat Disco is delivering “banging choons” at The Nest (36 Stoke Newington Road, N16, ilovethenest.com). The night bills itself as the sort “where you’re supposed to puncture a lung yelling to your mates to get on the floor when your jam comes on. A night when you enter the club with five friends and leave with 50”.

There’s a Beyonce-themed night at the Macbeth in Hoxton, called Flawless (70 Hoxton Street, N1, themacbeth.co.uk) and Oval Space in Bethnal Green is debuting its “brand new baby”, Hidden Depths — there’s a DJ set from Jungle and sets from Eton Messy and Doc Daneeka (29-32 The Oval, E2, ovalspace.co.uk). If you seek whimsy, the Southbank Centre is throwing a vintage NYE party; over five floors you will find seven “vintage” nightclubs, restaurants, a hair and beauty salon and a viewing platform from which to watch the capital’s fireworks.

There’s plenty of time for cynicism for the rest of the year: see in 2016 by smashing it.

Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESgoingout