Christmas Meal

I just went out for our work Christmas do. It is the first lunch time work bash I have been to and drinking was encouraged so my afternoon is not going to be particularly productive. But at least I have an excuse today.

It was a very different affair to my office party last year. Then, I was working for a company that fitted stone kitchen worktops, so the bulk of the workforce was made up of Eastern European men. We went to a Greek restaurant. Our company took up most of the downstairs area but there were also a couple of families sitting downstairs as well. When a load of stone workers get together and drink too much the atmosphere is not exactly a family one and they must have regretted their dining choice that night. It all got progressively drunker and the low point/ hightlight of the evening was when one of the Albanian guys decided urinating in the street outside would be far easier than walking to the toilet in the restaurant. The police didn't see this as an acceptable option and when it became clear he had no papers to be in the country he ended the evening in jail waiting to be deported. This dampened spirits briefly but things soon picked up again and a very drunken evening was had by all. I lost my glasses on a bus on the way home.

Today's Pizza Express Christmas menu lunch was unlikely to be quite as action packed as half the people present were menopausal women who sat there taking turns to fan themselves with wine lists as and when they hot flushed. It was moderately boozy and by the end of the meal the noise level had noticeably increased. The conversation was only moderately painful- the in depth discussion about the Spice Girls and how they look now compared to back in the day was the low point but it did kill nearly 3 hours of the day and was paid for so I can't really complain. Disappointingly, nobody got deported. After last year's benchmark, from now on I am only going to enjoy a work Christmas do if at least one person is deported.