Well since there is a lot to write about i'm going to do this in installments. This will hopefully keep things short, but i'm not making any promises.

We'll begin with that old favourite, Christmas. Personally Christmas began for me with our works' crimbo bash at Horsely Lodge - such a fine venue for such a rowdy bunch of people. Some work colleagues and i set our stall out from the off, arriving by limousine and sporting glow-sticks. I was actually up for an all-night rave, but that never materialised. I started out well, telling the overall boss of the company at the bar that "there's more to life than soap dispensers, Shaun", a comment which went down well with some of my co-workers and made me a hero. For a bit. After struggling through three courses (which were nice, i might add) the real drinking/making a fool of ourselves began. I started the ball rolling by having it out with a chap i didn't really see eye to eye with, but David raised the bar much higher by stripping down to his leopard print thong (a secret santa present) on the dancefloor. I suspect whoever bought him the garment knew that this would be inevitable.
People who know me will tell you that i pretty much never dance. However, there is one notable exception: i cannot resist the lure of Girls Aloud. They are my Kryptonite, the Moriarty to my Holmes, if you will. As if to cement this point i am seeing them in concert later this year, but that is another story.

After all the beer, hugging (i was in a loved-up mood, ok?) and frolics it was in to town via the limo in an attempt to keep the momentum going. Relieved to get out of the frosty atmosphere in a packed limousine (a co-worker referred to a different section of the company as being "all up their own arses" when one of them was sitting in the car with her), i subsequently put the aforementioned co-worker in a taxi, and ran to meet the others at Derby's premier hip joint - the Bluenote(!). Sadly Derby's premier hip joint was rather full, so it was off to Sadler's instead. I found my colleagues and then made my way to the bar, whereupon i chanced on some woman and became distracted. It turns out this woman was a fair bit older than me; a fact of which i didn't remember until after i had pulled her, but inebriation has always been a good excuse and it's one I'm sticking with.

Christmas eve was the big test - good i stick to my guns and avoid the White Hart? Kind of. For those of you unaware, the White Hart is a pub (well, durh) in Duffield and the site of an unofficial annual Christmas eve school reunion. I never liked the bloody place anyway, but since it has been done up to look like some arsehole Investment Bankers' wet dream it has gone down even further in my estimation. Even the wallpaper, as i frequently mentioned to those i spoke to, was actually making me nauseous. And i find it very difficult to be in the same room as a collection of Bright Young Things who look like catalogue models and have extremely healthy incomes: it pushes my self-esteem perilously close to the precipice. That being the case, we stayed for merely an hour or so, said what we had to say and got the fuck out of the place. The sodding decor was affecting my soul, and not in a good way. All i can say is that it felt as if Habitat had got a liquor license.
So we left for base camp: the Queens Head, Little Eaton. A quiet night of bawdy jokes about nuns and penises, several pints and a kebab. And barely a trace of a hangover the next day, which leads me to suspect that it was never the beer and the true responsible party for all my Christmas day bad heads was, in fact, the White Hart. I rest my case.

Well since there is a lot to write about i'm going to do this in installments. This will hopefully keep things short, but i'm not making any promises.

We'll begin with that old favourite, Christmas. Personally Christmas began for me with our works' crimbo bash at Horsely Lodge - such a fine venue for such a rowdy bunch of people. Some work colleagues and i set our stall out from the off, arriving by limousine and sporting glow-sticks. I was actually up for an all-night rave, but that never materialised. I started out well, telling the overall boss of the company at the bar that "there's more to life than soap dispensers, Shaun", a comment which went down well with some of my co-workers and made me a hero. For a bit. After struggling through three courses (which were nice, i might add) the real drinking/making a fool of ourselves began. I started the ball rolling by having it out with a chap i didn't really see eye to eye with, but David raised the bar much higher by stripping down to his leopard print thong (a secret santa present) on the dancefloor. I suspect whoever bought him the garment knew that this would be inevitable.
People who know me will tell you that i pretty much never dance. However, there is one notable exception: i cannot resist the lure of Girls Aloud. They are my Kryptonite, the Moriarty to my Holmes, if you will. As if to cement this point i am seeing them in concert later this year, but that is another story.

After all the beer, hugging (i was in a loved-up mood, ok?) and frolics it was in to town via the limo in an attempt to keep the momentum going. Relieved to get out of the frosty atmosphere in a packed limousine (a co-worker referred to a different section of the company as being "all up their own arses" when one of them was sitting in the car with her), i subsequently put the aforementioned co-worker in a taxi, and ran to meet the others at Derby's premier hip joint - the Bluenote(!). Sadly Derby's premier hip joint was rather full, so it was off to Sadler's instead. I found my colleagues and then made my way to the bar, whereupon i chanced on some woman and became distracted. It turns out this woman was a fair bit older than me; a fact of which i didn't remember until after i had pulled her, but inebriation has always been a good excuse and it's one I'm sticking with.

Christmas eve was the big test - good i stick to my guns and avoid the White Hart? Kind of. For those of you unaware, the White Hart is a pub (well, durh) in Duffield and the site of an unofficial annual Christmas eve school reunion. I never liked the bloody place anyway, but since it has been done up to look like some arsehole Investment Bankers' wet dream it has gone down even further in my estimation. Even the wallpaper, as i frequently mentioned to those i spoke to, was actually making me nauseous. And i find it very difficult to be in the same room as a collection of Bright Young Things who look like catalogue models and have extremely healthy incomes: it pushes my self-esteem perilously close to the precipice. That being the case, we stayed for merely an hour or so, said what we had to say and got the fuck out of the place. The sodding decor was affecting my soul, and not in a good way. All i can say is that it felt as if Habitat had got a liquor license.
So we left for base camp: the Queens Head, Little Eaton. A quiet night of bawdy jokes about nuns and penises, several pints and a kebab. And barely a trace of a hangover the next day, which leads me to suspect that it was never the beer and the true responsible party for all my Christmas day bad heads was, in fact, the White Hart. I rest my case.