2000-12-13 - 16:02:22

�You won�t find it by yourself, you�re gonna need some help, and you won�t fail with me around, c�mon let�s go��

No-one�s coming out these days (in the social sense) because of the unavoidable multi-victim pile-up that IS the Christmas party season. The pubs are full of office workers frantically downing shots in the hope that hasty drunkenness will transcend the awkwardness of revealing to lesser-known colleagues what you�re actually like outside working hours. In the City, apparently all the doorways to the great financial institutions turn into knocking-porches as the simmering lust of the city traders and merchant bankers (all married, natch) is given vent thanks to ritualistic alcohol abuse, the skirts of their co-workers (but mostly secretaries) pushed up, the Timothy Everest chalk-stripe trousers round the ankles.

I�m just jealous of course, having chosen to plough the lonely furrow of the freelance writer, I�m left to my own devices. I could just get pissed in my room, of course � pop out for a bottle of Lambrini and a few mini Scotch Eggs, put on some music I hate and try desperately to avoid work-related conversation. I could grope myself in the airing cupboard (not really breaking routine, there, though) but I�d have to pop to the copy shop down the road to photocopy my genitalia and fax them to Accounting.

�What�s the point in wasting time, with people that you�ll never know? C�mon, let�s go��

Last night�s carol concert went well-ish, although this angelic side of me is a weird contrast to the rock and roll debauchery (or something) of Sunday night. Funny to think I was an altar boy for 10 years. Even funnier to think that I was only remedially molested by a priest once in that time, too. You�d think the odds of some serious clerical action would have been much better. I think that�s why I�m still partial to cassocks. And don�t get me started on thuribles.

The choir is conducted by the Ninja Bride* who is also slightly incongruous, as I know for a fact she�s slept with over a hundred people, putting my mere 97 to shame. Oops, I mean, of course, 9.7.

*We had a weird �affair� last year � she was �breaking up� from her live-in boyfriend, who was also a kung-fu expert (I found out later). Then they went into the remissionary position and it all came out, and he, failing to take into account the delicate social nuances of the situation, wanted to beat me to a bloody pulp, but this was circumvented by me not leaving the house for several weeks.

Tomorrow I�m going to France for 2.5 hours.

�You�ve nothing to turn to now everything�s changed, stop looking for answers in everyone�s face, c�mon let�s go��

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