I could be clever and try to deliberately avoid the issue (read: Christmas parties), but as I'm still recovering from our own office bash, I'm frankly too tired to try to be smart and creative.

Which is why I'm indebted to those people at recruitment consultants Office Angels, who dropped me a line a tad late I'll admit for my purposes on the very worst of office party ice breakers.

Apparently, when it comes to the office Christmas party, more than two thirds of Britons admit to having put their foot in it - often with disastrous results.

The poll, conducted among 1,500 office workers, reveals that the nation's office party goers don't always consider the knock-on effect of their behaviour.

Indeed, the results show the wrong kind of lasting impressions which can be left when we try too hard to break the ice with colleagues and, perhaps more importantly, our bosses.

With 60 per cent of office workers admitting that at past parties they've found themselves voicing whatever first springs to mind, the survey reveals some of the least thought through opening lines currently in use:

1. So what do you do then? (said to company MD by a new starter)

2. You dance like my dad (said to company MD)

3. I'm glad we chatted tonight because I didn't like you when I first met you (personally, I can see nothing wrong with this)

4. Oh you're much better looking than you sound on the phone (surely a compliment?)

Now the reasons given for these conversational faux-pas vary seven out of ten admit it's due to alcohol, while 25 per cent blame their loose tongue on nervousness, which, let's face it, is forgivable.

While events of the office Christmas party are hazy in most people's minds, the vast majority of bosses say that they remember employees' cringe-worthy remarks.

While three quarters take these remarks in the jocular manner they were meant, one in four say it has a lasting impact on their impression of that employee.

Office Angels Top Tips for avoiding a party conversation clanger include: Think of a few conversation 'ice breakers' beforehand; avoid drinking too much too early and avoid office gossip.

Which is all well an' good but rather missing the point - because isn't the one thing that makes the Christmas office bash so bearable the fact that so many of us do say the wrong thing, and do act inappropriately, only to end up looking pitiful and forlorn the morning after the night before?

Which, let's face it, is great for the rest of us.