Life Less Literary

Thursday night at Leo Burnett’s is traditionally party night. And last Thursday was the biggest yet - Regional Headquarters (the bit of the company that handles all the Europe, Middle East & Africa stuff) based their bash on the theme “drink your way around the world”.

Also traditional on these occasions is some free booze, but rarely enough to last beyond the first hour or so. Now, these RHQ guys got it right. Instead of blowing all their budget on costumes, props and scenery that would be all but invisible to the sozzled masses after the first quadruple sprit, they got in a cheap canvas silhouetted with the world’s favourite landmarks, a few plastic hats decorated with miscellaneous national flags, and a tanker-load of free booze. And what a selection. Spirits were rather over-represented, with everything from Polish vodka through Mexican Tequila and American Jack Daniels to Greek ouzo. All of the bottles were laid out on a table, with a small smattering of mixers, so a pour-your-own frenzy of large measures ensued.

My own personal tour didn’t stray much from the Americas, alternating between Tequilas (with salt & lime, of course) and JD & coke. In between these I would grab a white wine from the bar, perhaps to give myself the illusion that I wasn’t drinking too many strong spirits. By the end of the evening I was reduced to ouzo, as there was precious little else left (although the very fact that there was anything remaining by 1am was unique among Leo Burnett parties). I alternated the ouzo with large gulps from bottles of mineral water found lying around the office, in the hope that this would prevent me from dehydrating and perhaps keep me more sober than I might otherwise have been. What I didn’t realise that the ouzo and water were probably busy mingling in my stomach and causing more damage than I had anticipated.

The evening started rationally enough, with polite banter, the occasional quick dance, tipsy but not dangerous. And then at some point, possibly around 9pm although time soon became even more of an abstract concept than usual, the spirits did what spirits do, and everything became a bit of a blur. I remember losing my glasses on the floor somewhere (well, no, I don’t remember losing them, but I do remember looking for them), finding them sans lens, and scrabbling around to find the missing part. Eventually I realised that the shards of glass splintering into my hands and knees were probably all that remained of the lens I was looking for - my 2-day old £330 (although to be honest pretty naff) glasses, gone in a moment of madness. I hope my insurance will cover them, although I suspect not.

The next 4 hours or so are completely blank. That’s the majority of my evening disappeared into the same space where lost socks and biros hide. I am told that at some stage we were doing acrobatics to Elvis - I don’t remember this but the dislocated shoulder & carpet burns on my elbow hint that it may well be true. My next moment of consciousness came at around 1am, when the building emptied and I searched in vain for Tim, whose house I was supposed to be staying at. He was nowhere to be found, and so I telephoned him in vain, repeatedly hearing his voicemail kick straight in. I resigned myself to sleeping under my desk, and retrieved a large wooden cask of garlic bread which I munched while pondering my predicament. Then at some point I got hold of Tim - not sure whether he returned a drunked message (I wasn’t the only one to leave a drunken message for Tim that night) or whether I kept calling for as long as it took for him to tube it from South Kensington to Tooting. He was back at home, so I said I would catch a cab to Tooting Bec and meet him in the middle of the road.

Reluctant to abandon my newly found hoard of garlic bread, I searched for a suitable carrier for it. Eventually I settled upon one of the empy dustbin bags within the bin by my desk, loaded it up with stale crusts, and hailed a cab clutching my stinky prize. I arrived at Tooting to find Tim, as arranged, wildly flailing in the street to hail me down. Entered his house where again my memory becomes unclear, and slept on the floor under a randomly-flung duvet.

At 7.30 the next morning my alarm beeped me into immediate wakedness. I leapt up thinking “where the hell am I?”, gradually realised, somehow located the kitchen where I downed a pint of water (cue for the ouzo to kick in again), and staggered across the road to the tube station. Still extremely drunk, I climbed on board a tube train, careening into the human traffic on the way. Spent a fuzzy & muzzy morning at work, eventually sobering up around midday, but at least I managed to avoid claiming that I would “never again” drink so much. Same time next week…