As the clock ticks ever closer to the end of someone's 15 minutes of fame, it can be a very ominous and worrying sound indeed, especially when you're a fading former X Factor star.
Whether that means you have to go on Celebrity Big Brother like Frankie Cocozza, or fall out of various London clubs on the celeb circuit, you have to do everything you can to keep yourself in the spotlight.
And former contestants Marcus Collins, Craig Colton and Sophie Habibis opted for the latter as they stumbled across town after a night at London's Z-list haunt Mahiki.
The trio were reuniting after the festive period, but someone should have told them to lay off the Christmas sherry, as it looked like all those months of living with Frankie was rubbing off on them.
Not that they stayed in to watch and support their former buddy on CBB though.
After sinking a few too many Marcus took a tippy tumble as he left the club, nearly getting acquainted with the pavement in front of a bunch of baying paps.
Call us old cynics but it was almost like they wanted to be spotted after they arranged the night with pals over Twitter, stating where they would be going.
Their evening did take an unexpected turn though as Craig had said to a pal: "well I can't really drink tonight! :( it's all about the company and food x."
Looks like that plan turned out well then.
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