Gallows Gallery

Last night was the 2008 Unofficial Onsite Christmas Party. Wait a minute! I hear you say, this is 2009! FTW? Well, allow me to explain, Nick had failed to organise a Christmas Party last year and the last one the company had was in 2007. This involved a Chinese meal, drink, Karaoke, drink, gravy for Sir Stanners, drink, more drunken karaoke and more drink. Maybe the jamboree that was the 2007 party dissuaded Nick to throw another one in case his staff were arrested and were unable to come back to work. So Duck L'Orange and Stanners decided to organise an unofficial one this weekend. The comeback was Nick has actually organised a 2009 party as well, obviously he was shamed into it... We started the night off quite well behaved, after meeting Mark and Preston at their place and then wee Ryan outside the Judges in York. Berny was waiting inside. In fact he was so excited about being let out of the house he'd been waiting for us since Wednesday. Speaking of which, Tim had been drinking since Wednesday and turned up already sauced up. Robot the Bruce followed him after a moment and last but by no means least Barry Onions turned up.

How the evening began...

What followed I only remember in snippets, like me getting Barry to admit he enjoys women shitting on his chest. Barry also told us his top five films. He included the The Chronicles of Riddick with it's amazing dialogue. He tried back peddling and said he also had Dr Strangelove and Lawrence of Arabia in there as well. The damage was done and we poured scorn on his love for Vin Diesel. Berny told us all about his flower covered love wagon camper van and dressing his young 'un up as a pixie. Bruce and I shared a moment over a MASSIVE kebab. Stanners was his usual Daily Express disgruntled self, despite Lauren chatting up some pole dancing skank for him. She turned out to be engaged (the skank, not Lauren). Tim was his usual drunken boorish self, attempting to gain entry to the private staff areas in the guise of looking for the toilet. After trying to get into the Willow Restaurant to no avail, the plucky few ended up in the Gallery nightclub. It's been a long time since I've been in there and it will be a longer time before I ever set foot in that filthy hole again. Stanners, Lauren, Mark and I returned to Mark and Preston's place to find Preston asleep on the door step after having some sicky pudding for himself. I'd heard rumours that this kind of thing happened, but had never seen it until now. I am a wiser man for it.

How the night ended...

I managed to get myself and Lauren home and safe in one piece mainly being helped by a Morrison's Breakfast. I now turn you to the delights of another Singapore blog entry: read on and be AMAZED!! (And no this isn't further proof that this blog has Jumped the Shark, I promise I will sort another digging memoir this week...)

Monday, May 28, 2007

This is the biggest and best paid Cake and Arse party I have ever been involved in. When I worked for Cotswold Archaeology one day Allen and I sat in the van all day 'Waiting for the digger driver', I thought that was a piss take. It was bettered by my last week with Arcunts, when each morning I got a piece of pottery out of a bag to be washed, by the end of the day it was still waiting to be washed. This weekend takes the fucking biscuit. On Sunday we got to work and set the diggers off doing their Jungle bashing business. We have to wait until the jungle is cleared away so we can set the array up and drive over the areas and scan them. B***, T**** and I had nothing to do, so we hung around for the morning and after lunch time at one o'clock we locked the gates with the diggers in and fucked off to a swimming pool. We spent the next three hours swimming around, jumping in, sunbathing and drinking Tiger Beer. I thought we might have been taking the piss a little bit, but it soon passed.

After work the three of us headed over to Woodlands Cinema to see the latest installment of the Pirates Of The Caribbean films. I should have realised what I was letting myself in for after about half an hour, I was bored. Yes, Buckles were swashed, main-braces spliced and a whole host of other Piratical terms beyond, but I found the whole thing a little dull. It takes itself far too seriously, and there was no Ninjas kicking Pirates arses.

The film finished about 3am the next morning, and T**** was convinced that the Mall we had parked the car in would be locked up. In a panic we dashed out of the cinema, promptly got lost and found ourselves walking through the loading areas of Woodlands mall, going past signs saying 'KFC Staff ONLY', 'Unauthorised Access will be punished by Beheadings' and the like. We got to the car in sweaty and panicky mode to find out that the place doesn't shut at ten thirty at all, but merely the price goes up after ten thirty.

I have spent all day sunbathing watching Ang dig big holes in the Demolitions pit we have to clear. Then B*** brought his Ipod, so I listened to the Macc Lads for a bit. As we have nothing to do in the morning I have been given the morning off, so I will spend it lying in bed like the sun-burnt sow that I am.