There’s no rule that says you always have to be the most cultivated person in the room. True friends will accept the fact that your film knowledge extends to the top five teenage makeover movies of the early 00s or that your favourite La La Land is by Demi Lovato. Other times, you’re at dinner with your pal’s new arty boyfriend or trying to convince an interviewer that there’s more to you than a mastery of Excel – in this case, a little blagging may be required. Luckily for you, Lady Bible is here to help…

Head Straight To The Gift Shop

Let’s face it, actually attending exhibitions can be kind of a drag. Your feet start to hurt, selfies with self-portraits are frowned upon and the only painting you came to see is more crowded than the Northern line on a Tuesday. But if you can make it at least as far as the gift shop, be sure to pick up a few souvenirs of your amazing ‘experience’ with the artist of the moment – whether Mondrian or Mantegna, there’s bound to be an exciting exhibition poster ready and waiting to commemorate your day. Better still, pick up a tote bag for some on-the-go #art appreciation.

Be warned: this could end up like that Joy Division t-shirt you owned in Year 9 (make sure you can name at least one of the paintings this time).

Learn the First Line of a Few Famous Poems

This one is inspired by Woody Allen’s startlingly mediocre To Rome with Love, in which the ‘well read’ and incredibly vacuous Monica reels off the first line of several poems in order to convince a gullible boy of her intelligence: “You buy into her bullshit because she seems to know all the right things to say. She knows names, she knows buzzwords, she knows certain cultural phrases that imply that she knows more than she does.”

Let this be an inspiration to us all – forget the dust-ridden anthologies staring down from your parents’ shelf and head to Sparknotes instead. A few daffodils and roads not taken and you’re ready to impress at any dinner party you choose. It’s what Keats would have wanted, n’est-ce pas?

Curate Your Instagram Persona

Even if the majority of your weekends are spent practising child’s pose amongst a pile of empty Twiglet packets, your Insta self doesn’t have to do the same. Follow some ~artsy~ accounts such as @dreamersofdecadence or @accidentallywesanderson and do some select regrams of the edgiest looking shots. While you’re at it, snap a picture of yourself outside the National Gallery on your way to the nearby Pret, story a random article you found on Twitter that makes you seem informed and be sure the world knows when you venture into Waterstones to use the loo and happen to pass by this year’s Booker Prize winner.

Learn To Cook Just One Ottolenghi Dish (Must Include Pomegranate Seeds)

There’s nothing more guaranteed to make dinner parties look ultra chic than a good old-fashioned Ottolenghi concoction. The more colours the better, make sure to pick the one with the most unnecessary decoration (edible flowers, crushed pistachios, miniature Mona Lisas and the like) to guarantee that it ends up on all your guests’ Instas for the next month to come. No need to learn more than the one dish – nobody has to see the pesto pasta you eat for every other meal of the week and when people start to get suspicious just swap them for a new group of willing participants. Real friends will get it.

Look Back At Your English GCSE Revision Notes

It is a truth universally acknowledged that people love talking about what they know. And what do they know better than the books whose content they were forced to digest and vomit back up every week over the course of two long years? That’s right, it’s time to whip out The Great Gatsby (or maybe just re-watch the film with the fun Beyoncé cover) and brush up on your entry level literature analysis. Pathetic fallacy? Yes please. Cyclicality? Sign me up. The symbolism of GREEN and RED? It doesn’t get better than this! Your friends will be extra pleased to join in on a subject they feel comfortable with, but try to learn one extra fact so that in the end you turn out the cleverest – natch.

Written by: Mini Smith

Illustration: Bleeker Brand by Beth Richardson