2005-12-19 - 2:09 p.m.

Looking back, I think I can pretty much isolate the lowest point of Friday evening.

To my mind it came not when I realised I was two hours from home having taken a bus in the wrong direction to the scariest neighbourhood in north east London at 3am, nor when I was standing at the bus stop in the ball-numbing cold of winter, but possibly, and I know my mind was scrambled by alcohol, when the drunken old Polish man who appeared from nowhere started shouting at me, and then punching me in the back. Yeah, that was definitely when I started to have something less than a good time.

I don�t think I was in any real danger, and I simply walked to the next bus stop, but I just remember thinking there must be better ways to spend the early hours of the morning than risking hypothermia whilst an illegal immigrant pummels your kidneys. Call me a cynic. Not that his blows didn�t have a some remedial warming qualities, but I got the feeling my wellbeing wasn�t too high on his list of priorities, a list which I expect only ran to vodka, dirty facial hair and crazed night-time violence.

Still, that will teach me to go out in the City proper, where it�s all braying merchant bankers, coked up investment brokers and heart-stoppingly aggressive venture capitalists.

And the men are just as bad.

I was only there to see off a friend who is emigrating, but sadly it involved being party to such charming exchanges as:

Man in pin stripe suit so stripey it resembled pyjamas: �So, I�ve been offered divisional manager for the entire southern hemisphere��

Man with frankly ridiculous overly-defined parting: �John, I wouldn�t piss on the southern hemisphere if it was on fire.�

Oh, to be so important that you can withhold urine from entire semi-globes. And urine formed from constant rounds of �75 bottles of champagne at that. Now THAT�S power. Of course, you DO have to reconcile your being a sub-human piece of shit with nothing even vaguely resembling a soul, but it�s worth the sacrifice. Jesus, imagine the guy that gets to head up the NORTHERN hemisphere. He probably pisses liquid mercury, but his contract with Satan will come back to haunt him. Money talks, but you don�t listen.

I got home at around 5am, when I should have been tucked up dreaming of INSERT NAME OF YOUR MOST SEXUALLY EXCITING FANTASY PARTICIPANT AND HAVE FUN WITH STORY by 2.30am at the latest, and come Saturday, there was nothing else but to drink my way through the gnawing self-hatred.

Boy, the festive spirit is practically dripping off me.