Month: December 2005

Oh dear. It’s that time of year again: tonight is my work Christmas party. After last year’s truly awful Medieval Banquet-themed event, I had assumed that this year’s party couldn’t possibly be any worse, but it looks like I might be about to be proved wrong.

The first worrying sign came way back in July, when we were emailed a list of potential options, all of which seemed to be offered by this company: www.christmasparties.net, and which mostly seem to consist of a conference room in some shabby hotel that’s been decorated in a particular theme.

For example, how could you possibly resist the “Hooray for Hollywood” themed event:

“As you sip your welcome drink in the glamorous foyer take in the aura of anticipation as everybody marvels at which famous stars they will see!

Our giant illuminated Oscars will lead the way to your reserved table, where you will have a rare opportunity to dine with the stars, as images of famous screen icons adorn the room.”

So that opportunity to “dine with the stars” on your “reserved table” basically means that there are going to be a couple of film posters on the walls.

Or there’s the “Viva Las Vegas” night, which captures the spirit of Vegas with its “Tables dressed with black tablecloths and white napkins”, and I’m pleased to see that they list “lighting” as one of the items included. Wow. With these lights and tablecloths they are really spoiling us.

So the pretty universal reaction to all this nonsense was that none of us wanted to attend any of these overpriced, naff, tacky events, and were sure that the company could do a lot more with the fifty quid a head that they were planning to spend.

Flash forward a couple of months, and the people tasked with booking our Christmas party come round the office to ask everyone individually what they’d like to do this year. In an entirely impartial and non-influential voting system, we were asked whether we’d like (in a low, dull voice) to just go out as the company for “a boring, normal meal” somewhere or (in an excited, happy voice) would we like “a really exciting and fun themed party event with other companies who will surely bring along lots of single men and women”.

I voted for the meal.

And, of course, we’re going to “Disco thru’ the Decades“, because the entire decision on where to go for the evening should be based on the off chance that a couple of developers might pull. I think my favourite part of the theme we’ve chosen is their classy use of the deliberate misspelling “thru” in the event’s title. And I must say, I’m looking forward to “bopping along to the fantastic DJ” at “Club Awesome” as he plays disco hits from the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. I imagine it will just be like being 16, back in Southport, and at the Kingsway listening to all my favourite songs, like “It’s Raining Men”, and “Oh What A Night”. And you can never listen to enough of the same 5 disco songs from the 19070s can you? I mean surely no other type of music happened during that 10 years, did it?

But wait, what’s that you say? There’s Karaoke too, for the “budding pop stars”? And that’s “awesome” as well? What are the chances! It’ll be just like that Pop Stars Factor show that all the kids are watching these days.

Oh, and I almost forgot to point out the opulent hotel where all this excitement is taking place. Don’t those stylish conference rooms look great.

I can’t wait. Can you tell?

That said, there is one story that does bear telling properly. As a birthday present for me, Sal had decided that we should take a trip along the coast for a few days, and towards the end of our stay in Melbourne, that is what we did. I’d been part of the way along the Great Ocean Road on both of my two previous trips to Australia. For various reasons, I’d never quite made it past Apollo Bay, and I’d certainly never made it as far as the twelve apostles, a collection of large limestone rock formations just off the coastline near Port Campbell.

This time, Sal had booked us a night in a lovely apartment just outside Apollo Bay, so there was no excuse not to make it to the apostles themselves–although I never did find out where the name came from, given that there not only aren’t 12 of them, but, being large lumps of rock in the sea, they also bear very little similarity to what I’d imagine the founding members of a religious cult in the Middle East a couple of thousand years ago would have looked like. Incidentally, Wikipedia is no help in this regard, either, although it does tell me that they were originally called “The Sow and Piglets”. Frankly, that’s even more baffling–perhaps this is like one of those dot puzzles they give to reality television contestants to test how susceptible they would be to a space-related practical joke (“yeah, that one’s a pig, and those are the babies… no, I’ve got it, sorry, I think that one’s Jesus…”)

Our gorgeous apartment was situated a few kilometres along the coast from Apollo Bay, just up from the beach with only the other three apartments for company, which provided a nice illusion of being completely isolated (while maintaining the luxury of having the town only a stone’s throw away). It was another one of those “it’s bigger than our flat” scenarios, what with its two bedrooms and bathrooms, spa bath, lovely spacious kitchen, front and back seating areas and automatic coffee machine. We didn’t want to leave.

After we’d spent a little while wandering around the apartment saying “Wow!” a lot, and taking photos, we decided we’d better go and get the lobster we’d planned to have for dinner, so we sauntered into town and down to the port. Rather worryingly, given that one of the main things we’d planned to do there had been to buy a lobster, and eat it, we entered Apollo Bay’s only fish shop to see the fishmonger at Apollo Bay’s only fish shop scraping up the remaining ice from the empty cabinet at the front of Apollo Bay’s only fish shop. But, luckily, he did indeed have a cooked lobster out the back for us, which he duly produced and offered to cut in half (but not before Sal had asked if we could take a photo–not something I think I could do in Sainsbury’s without being laughed out of the shop, mind).

Returning to the apartment, we settled into the plush leather sofas with a glass of wine to get on with the important business of thinking about having dinner, or maybe a spa bath. So there we sat and watched not very much happening at all on the empty beach that was immediately outside. And through our floor to ceiling windows it was rather like watching a very big widescreen tv, as we watched the man and woman from the apartment behind ours wander down to the beach, he rushing ahead slightly with a carrier bag and her holding back to admire the view. Then he knelt down in the sand and started fiddling with some rocks on the beach. Being the pragmatic sort, I thought he might be constructing one of those BBQ things in the sand where you bury some fish and roast it underground in some way, but Sal, being a girl, knew immediately what was going on. Sure enough, after some more fiddling the woman was finally allowed to approach, and as he now properly got down on bended knee, she did a little excited jumping up and down thing as he produced the ring. And we sat in our lovely apartment in our comfortable sofas shamelessly trespassing on their very private moment.

Later, much later, when they’d gone back to their apartment, we wandered down to what was now effectively our private beach and walked about for a bit. Sure enough, there it was in the sand, crudely constructed out of small stones: “Will U Marry Me?”

So, it’s becoming increasingly clear that in spite of my best efforts I’m never going to actually catch up with the last month’s worth of bloggable events. We’ve been back from Australia for over a week now, and, well, I’ve got nowhere, frankly. (er, actually, make that two weeks: see, I even started this entry in the past…)

SO. Perhaps a summary of notable events is in order. I’m clearly quite incapable of yoking together these disparate events into some kind of coherent narrative, so I’ll merely lump them all together here: here are the things I might have blogged, if I’d had the time. Perhaps you’d like to think up appropriate segues for yourself? Ok. Thanks, that’s great…

– Entering a bar in Federation Square near the start of our stay, I was asked for ID. “I’m 28”, I said to the bouncer, a bit taken aback. “You’ve got a very young face”, he said, before asking Sal (Australian driving license in hand) if she’d like to vouch for me.

– A week into our stay in Melbourne, and I suppose feeling a bit homesick, I made the rather unusual decision to get up early in the morning and watch the live Premiership football. After watching a rather dull 1-0 victory for Bolton over Tottenham I was expecting maybe some punditry, perhaps an interview with the managers or a look at the table. But no, apparently. Just straight to adverts and on to the bob sleigh. Clearly a far more important and popular sporting event in the southern hemisphere (at 8 AM on a Tuesday morning).

– Despite having been to Australia three times now, somehow it was still news to me that the standard Australian English word for sheets, towels, linen, and so on, is Manchester. Since when did a town in the north of England become a word for towels? How long has this been going on? Why did no one think to tell me? Can we use the names for other places in the North West to refer to things (Blackpool? Chester? Southport?)

– I’m not sure why, but the question I was most asked during my stay was “is this your first time in Australia?” Without exception, every single new person I was introduced to asked me this question. In some cases there were whole people with whom this was the only conversation I had. By the end of the holiday I was so bored with giving the same answer to the question I was almost at the point of just making stuff up.

– On the plane back I spent much of the second half of the flight exploring the seat-back entertainment system. One of the features this included was a live text news section, which was a bit like a really rubbish version of the Internet crossed with a rubbish version of Ceefax. In amongst the entertainment news I was delighted to read the extremely Onion-esque headline “Incident Blown Out Of All Proportion”.