Christmas Bash

Last night was my work Christmas party where I spent lots of money, drank too much and had a miserable time. We ended up in an awful place called Chicago Rock Cafe. We had to queue for an hour to get in, pay five pounds for the pleasure and then were treated to cheesy dance music played at a volume designed to elide conversation. The bar had some lovely brightly lit pumps advertising Boddintons, Staropramen, Guinness... none of which they actually sold. After waiting for about 20 minutes to be served I inquired about the beers on tap to be told that they only sold bottles of Becks and the only kind of whiskey they stocked was Bells. Later on I managed to step in some sick near the dance floor, shortly before getting involved in separating two blokes intent on punching each others lights out by the bar. Sometime between 2 and 3am I'd had enough; I headed out to find a taxi and realised that, despite spending the best part of seven hours out with my work colleagues, we'd barely said a word to each other. The experience of clubbing in Tamworth can be best summed up by a comment I overheard in the queue: "It's wicked when you throw up, man, cos you can just carry on drinking."

I did make good use of my hangover time today, however, and finished my short story. Just four essays to go...