Last Night

Dover Street is one of those streets perpendicular to Piccadilly, parallel to Old Bond, that cuts through Mayfair and ends up at the Ritz.

On Dover Street there is a club with Polynesian flair. They serve communal drinks in 'treasure chests'-- questionable concoctions rumoured to contain rum and/or champagne and/or tequila with colouring and fruit garnishings.

Can I get something else? Would it be rude?

I don't enthusiastically embrace the concept of communal drinks. Not since the Scorpion Bowl at the Chinese restaurant behind the student union in Cambridge* where we would go as underagers because we knew the Chinese wouldn't card.

A server walked by. I asked for a beer. No double-take. No questioning look. Some of the others in the party had their own drinks -- not just a straws plunged into a Disneyesque chest filled with hard core something or other. I wasn't the only selfish drinker.

Waiters walked through the party offering hors d'oeuvres. I declined the first tray. Then the second. I was chatting with the hostess.

I suppose I have to eat something. She'll think I'm poo pooing the poopoo platter.

As I should have. On the third pass, I picked up a sample -- chicken on a stick. I do not enthusiastically embrace overcooked and cold finger food. I ate nothing else for the rest of the night.

After three beers, I found myself taking dips into the treasure chests. At first I tried to keep track of my straw. By the end of the evening everyone's straws were everyone else's straws too.

Disgusting.

Everyone else consisted of work colleagues. This was not a formal work do, but it was a gathering of most of the company. Someone's birthday. Compatible colleagues.

But share straws with these people?

I danced until three in the morning.

Early 80's Madonna and Outkast and Gloria Gaynor.

One of the work colleagues, a gentle giant with a shaved head - a deceptive look: a menacing face covering the demeanour of a lamb, received a bottle to the face because a member of the public - a short aggressive guy - didn't like the look of our gentle giant. A strong face, little damage. The short aggressive guy was ejected from the match. We danced on.

The taxi driver tried to engage me in conversation as he drove through Chelsea. I couldn't hear properly, my ear drums still humdrumming from music on the dance floor. I was afraid I couldn't talk properly; I worried about slurring. I thought about that black cab driver who plied his lone female customers with drug-laced champagne and then had his way with them. My guy wasn't that guy, but he talked to much.

Dog greeted me enthusiastically. I embraced her enthusiastically. My Man didn't even toss in the bed.

*Massachusetts