Grade 1 The Miracle Hangover
Also known as The Ghost Hangover, this is the hangover that for some reason, inexplicable to science or reason, fails to happen. We've all been there - you've gone to bed lashed to the gills expecting to wake up hanging out of your arse, and when morning comes, instead it's like you've stepped out into the opening frames of a My Little Pony episode.
Grade 2 The Trembler
Ok - you've had a few over the eight, you feel a bit shakey inside, a bit raw round the edges, but a few coffee shots and a couple of gaspers should set things to rights. You've got to go to work, but at worst a light sheen of perspiration should be the only evidence of your inner dipso.
Grade 3 The Sweater
Holy crap, that last bottle of plonk was a mistake! Any exertion beyond lifting your trembling coffee-cup to your wine stained teeth will have you sweating like Red-Rum finishing the National! Please God, don't let the boss come in today!
Grade 4 The Wringer
That is the last jag you are going on - ever! You've phoned in sick and can barely face the bacon sandwich your palsy afflicted hand is raising to your enslobbered mouth. You flinch at the slightest eye contact with your fellow man and struggle even with sitting in a chair in front of the TV. The core of your being is a faecal vortex.
Grade 5 The Shredder
Here you are, at the hangover level most novices can only dream of the fabled Shredder! The day oddly enough starts OK, because a) you are still shit-faced from last night and b) you can't (yet) remember what you have done! But this is merely the calm before the storm. Gradually the results of your bender begin to creep in - flash backs of horror inducing memory surrounded by a black hole of amnesia that you know is even worse. As your physical decline begins to take hold your mental architecture starts to crumble correspondingly. At this stage you'd give a years wage to feel as good as the guy in Munch's The Scream! The wings of madness flap around your head and you retreat to bed in a darkened room where even lying still is too much to bear. Eventually you fall into a sweat soaked and intermittent sleep, from which the following morning you emerge, shaking and unnerved, resolving that that will never - never! - happen again (till next time that is
). Congratulations my friend - you've survived The Shredder! Nb. Some will be surprised not to hear mention of splitting headaches and nausea in the above classification. While significant aspects of the post-drinking process they are not of themselves part of the 'hangover' proper. This is what remains after the asprins and anti-emetics have done their job. That shakey, churney fraying of the soul, the cure for which (short of unscrewing another bottle of Jack) has yet to be discovered.
question mark 
now. But we have