DPE Christmas Party

Last Saturday was the annual (well, how often did you expect it to happen?) Christmas Party for the Developer and Platform [Evangelism] Group here at Microsoft UK. I put 'Evangelism' in braces as I'd say a good half of the Brits who work there don't much like that particular Americanism and as such, drop it. I personally think it sums up what we do though....

Once Julie and I had spent many hours getting ourselves thoroughly dolled up - me in a tuxedo and her in a gorgeous, but simple purple dress (with accessories, of course) we joined a few others at Reading station and made our way over to Portland Street, near Regent's Park in London. For reasons still unknown to me the Royal Institute Of Public Health had hired out their building to us for the event - and a very nice building it was too.

As pretty much everyone had a partner I didn't know most of those who were there - which gave me an idea. If you can find exclusive little venues like this in London, and just watch for when people turn up, you've got a good chance of getting a great free night - with drinks and food all included. All you have to do is dress smart and look confident.

On the subject of free drinks, they were indeed forthcoming, with the waiters bizarrely seeming almost madly intent on ensuring that every wineglass was constantly filled. I think they lost some of their salary for every ten seconds that someone's wine glass was at 75% capacity or less. Like some bad 80's game show, but with more potential drink spiking and embarrassing behaviour, and less muddy knees and...embarrassing behaviour. Of a different type of course.

Once we were done with all of the inevitable introductions - which consisted of some banal small talk and mentioning of names, whilst the men compared their partner's against their colleagues partners, or female colleagues, to see who had the best trophy there. It was a bit unfair as the colleagues' wives had to dress relatively reservedly, whereas the office girls could 'let it all hang out'. As they did. Wink wink, nudge nudge. Don't think this is sexist and horrible by the way, because whilst the men were engaged in this the girls were being far more despicable, and quietly pricing everything the other women were wearing, checking that their bag and shoes matched (I was told by a complete stranger that this indeed happens upon *every* social meeting of two women whilst shopping earlier on the weekend), and doing whatever other underhanded things women do to eachother when they're not nagging men, or covering one another in whipped cream (which I assume they spend pretty much all of their time doing, unless I can physically see them).

After that, it was time for dinner, and I must say I was quite impressed that special girl (aka, Julie-oh 'the celiac') got served food which looked almost identical to that which everyone else was eating - despite often bearing little componential resemblance at all. Fairly standard stuff for a black-tie dinner - looked nice and pretty but there wasn't enough. Why won't they learn that wealth equates to giant plates of food, rather than small plates of art? And, more to the point, who the hell are 'they' anyway?

After a couple of speeches about how great I am (other things were probably mentioned too), dinner was over and it was time for the real fun. A roulette table and a blackjack table were set up, and everyone issued with some fake money, which I thought was rather cheap, given how much Microsoft makes every year. A small disco was also set up (think Wedding) and therefore most of the crowd simply stood around chatting and staring in bewilderment at their wine glasses as the night went on. Julie turned out to be quite a gambling shark and managed to nearly bankrupt a fake casino on the roulette table, and I had a conversation about the fragrance (perfume & flavourings) industry with someone extremely interesting.

By 1am everyone was rather tipsy indeed and the night wound down, and those of us that weren't staying in hotels set off for the coach back to Reading station. I imagine the people who were already starting to gossip about the fact I'd brought someone who clearly wasn't my girlfriend (and on my girlfriend's birthday no less), and who had been acting very...affectionately...towards me, would probably have exploded if I'd taken her to a hotel, so we went back to my bed instead. The time inbetween the night winding down and us setting off for home was extremely fun, but I'm not going to post about that here for various legal reasons - IM me or call me or something if you want to know. Don't talk to me in person though, that would default the entire point of blogging. The coach journey somehow managed to last nearly two hours and involve a break halfway, which was quite impressive for a short hop from Reading to London - and then it was time for some sleep before yet another busy day...

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Wow, this is really long. I bet no-one read this far. Sorry about that ^^