There's a good boy

As we go to press, my plan to behave myself at the office Christmas party tonight is holding-up manfully.  I rode my bike to the tube station this morning and left it there.  The strategy behind this move is that having to ride it home from the station later will reinforce my resolve to drink moderately - the rationale being that one cannot ride a push bike when catastrophically pissed-up.  Although having said that, I have done this in the past of course, once memorably along the very narrow towpath of the river Lea.  The blood still curdles at the thought of that trip.

At my age, I should be able to control myself better than this.  In small groups I am quite disciplined, but in a vulgar mob I lose all restraint.  This is due to my profound shyness.  I need at least four pints to settle my nerves.  By then of course one's judgement is clouded and the Tasmanian Devil that lives in my head starts goading me into "having a tear up".  The residual sensible part of my brain sees all this unfolding, but is powerless to intervene.  He just sits in the corner, shaking his head and tutting.  After a couple of hours of determined necking, I'll find myself dancing, and then even the crapulent mind knows the game's up.

No dancing tonight, none.

An evening on the tiles...

I had a rare night out on the pop last night.  It was to commemorate and commiserate with my former boss, who has been unceremoniously bumped from his job after 20 years' service.  I used to look forward to these affairs, but these days I eye them with dread.  I simply cannot stick away six pints and not feel the consequences.  That implies I used not to notice the damage; that isn't true.  But I was better at ignoring it when I was younger.  Also I had fewer qualms about turning up to work in an unfit state.  These days, I feel bad if I arrive at the office bright green and trembling.

I left them to it at about 10 o'clock.  My former boss, who was visibly in his cups when I arrived at 7pm, was still draining the bitter cup when I left.  I imagine the inside of his nut resembles the Somme today.

[update]: I got an email from him a few moments ago.  He was so "confused" upon reaching home that climbing the stairs seemed a Herculean task, so he slept downstairs with the cat instead.

What else has been happening?  Oh, yes, I know - Sainsbury's has unveiled its Christmas advert, which is a dramatisation of the famous Christmas truce during the Great War when British and German troops met in no-man's land to play football.  It's a beautifully realised, subtle and sweetly poignant film, and about the most offensive thing I've ever laid eyes on.

I'm staggered that not absolutely everyone in the country isn't horrified by this cynical, heartless and brutally calculating piece of marketing.  Let's think about it for a moment.  A supermarket is using the First World War to hawk its pickled onions and y-fronts.  If, as some people argue, it's fine to to invoke an historical event in which thousands tragically died, then why not go the whole hog next year and base the entire yuletide campaign on 9/11?  The reason they won't is because people would, quite rightly, hit the fucking roof.

But the principle is exactly the same.  Or are we to conclude that an event that killed 37 million people...err...yonks ago is fair game, but one that killed three and a half thousand and happened within living memory is off limits as to use it to market Pot Noodles might, just might, be considered to be beyond the fucking pale?  This is clearly bullshit.  It is either a principled or an unprincipled act.  One cannot cherry pick instances when it's okay and others when it's not.  That's like arguing that it's fine to ridicule a Chinaman, but not a Nigerian.  Actually I do believe some racists actually advance this confused argument.

Gloam is where the heart is

I'm typing this at seven minutes to four in the afternoon, and it's virtually pitch black out.  You certainly wouldn't be able to negotiate a country lane without a miner's helmet on, not unless you like being run over by threshing machinery, that is.

Still, onwards and upwards.  I'm off out for a drink with former colleagues this evening, and it's good weather for gathering together in a cosy boozer on the banks of the Thames to share a couple of mugs of foaming mother's ruin with friends.  It's starting to feel like Christmas already.  And, let us face facts, Xmas is a bacchanal.  I know the Pope or Aled Jones would have you believe otherwise, but don't listen to them; the pagan festival that takes place at the end of the year, with all its attendant dancing, boozing and rutting, far far predates the arrival of Christianity.  The church simply chose to hitch its star to winterval's wagon.  So, be in no doubt, it's all about the carousing.  Happy Christmas - debase yourself.

The only downside to this season is its length.  Everyone is clammering to get drinks in the diary - former colleagues, relatives, old school friends, tramps I once gave money to - everyone.  This makes matters a little cluttered.  In a couple of weeks' time for example I've got carols (and drinks) on Tuesday, drinks with former colleagues on Wednesday, work's Xmas do on Thursday and a shindig at the neighbours' place on Saturday.  That leaves Friday free, and Friday, as everyone do be know, is pub night.  Phew is right.  I'm getting bilious just typing out the schedule.

The air is rich with ions. The gods must be displeased.

It is super hot in London today - proper oh-Jesus-I'm-melting hot.  It's tough for the English to cope in weather like this as they like to keep a lid on their emotions by-and-large, but that's impossible.  The simplest physical task in this heat requires herculean will-power.  By the time I cycled home last night, I was like a rag doll.  Unfortunately, Mrs O was out carousing with colleagues, so I had cook the tea when all I wanted to do was lie down and have a good tremble.  Thanks to my massive reserves of stoicism and heart I did manage to throw together a Spanish omelette before the tears came.

And I speak as one of the fitter members of the populace.  If I'm struggling, I shudder to think how the flabby rotters are getting on.  Needless to say, it will be carnage in the pubs of the capital tonight.  People will be pouring rubbing alcohol in their ears.  It doesn't help that the weather's supposed to break tomorrow, so the window of crapulent opportunity is small.  He who hesitates is lost.

The one upside to the humidity and the heat was that there was an almighty and spectacular electrical storm in the small hours.  The noise was unimaginable.  Even London falls silent for a few hours in the dead of night, so the peals of thunder rang out like you would not believe.  I thought in my dozing alpha wave state that the roof was about to fly off.

Back to normal tomorrow - wet and miserable.  Ho hum.