2005-01-01

Yesterday afternoon I was let off early from the newspaper because hooray! New Year�s Eve! In anticipation of the evening�s scheduled debauchery, I made a beer stop at Asda on the way home, which, for my North American readers, is basically Walmart, only worse, if you can imagine such a thing. The place was as packed as a death train to Auschwitz, and markedly less festive. The crush in the beer aisle was maddening: after knocking over a few small children, I managed to wedge myself close enough to a shelf to snag a pack of West Country Best Bitter, on sale for the Low Low Price of three pounds. Perhaps a poor choice, in retrospect � if that really is the best bitter the West Country can come up with, I truly hope that they reserve the worst stuff for stripping engine parts, or at least for export to Fort Lauderdale. After grinding my teeth in the checkout queue for twenty minutes, I packed the beer in my bag and headed off for my evening shift at the bar.

We closed down the bar at ten (leaving us with a mere hour and a half�s worth of cleaning! Blarg!), after which the hard-core staff headed for a house party held by one of the managers, bless his heart. I necked as much foul beer as I could without risking spontaneous regurgitation, and managed to get into a very long and heated discussion with my manager�s flatmate, entirely in French, which is a plus because it means that the rest of the party would have needed a translator to realize that I was being a complete ass. I should carry on all of my drinking binges in a foreign language.

At ten minutes to midnight, we all trooped up to the roof of the building. The view was spectacular � the group of us stood around gaping, drinking cheap champagne from the bottle and saying �Holy fuck� a lot as fireworks suddenly filled the sky over all of Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight. Then we went inside and watched crap music videos and tried to get each other to confess to having engaged in degenerate sexual acts.

I was exhausted after working two double shifts in a row, and I was bored (read: the French flatmate was regrettably not hot), and therefore made a graceful exit around 2 AM. �I�m disappointed in you, Robin,� said my manager as I attempted to pick my way through the semi-conscious bodies sprawled on the floor.

�Well, I apologize for not sticking around to make a fool of myself in front of everyone,� I said, �but I have neither the time nor the resources.� Which I think was a cool thing to say, if somewhat nonsensical. (Cool but nonsensical: setting the tone for 2005!)