Christmas Festivities
We are at that time of year again, the festive season of goodwill, cheer, more parties and frothing mouths.
The first cab off the rank for this merry season was lunch with my mother-in-law, her nearly nonagenarian friends and my wife. Just seven women and me. There seemed to be a slight frisson of excitement at having a ‘young’ man in the room and I seemed to pass muster in handing round wine and pork scratchings. Meanwhile the conversation, suitably for Adelaide, focused on the property market and other people.
With lunch over my wife and mother-in-law departed for separate parties leaving me with five expectant women. All the while the white wine ignited a degree of flirtation among the women, which I found quite perturbing as it has been a long time since any woman has been coy and giggly with me. Finding sufficient fortitude I continued pouring the wine though sadly the pork scratchings were no more. At the first hint that we should go, I was out of the house with indecent haste and I was surprised that I still had such a turn of speed.
*
In the 1990s my firm had a client Christmas party that involved a game of cricket. Housed in a 1970s low rise office block with large open-plan floors we had planned for the game by making a ball out of paper and gaffer tap. After three hours of boozing we decamped to the empty floor above us with clients in tow. The ball was meant to be soft enough not to cause any harm but in fact was as hard as a cricket ball. One of our young dealers at the crease decided a hook shot to square-leg was the go and it just missed a fund manager. Six inches to the right and he would definitely have been concussed.
The only injury of the night was to a female fund manager, who was taking the game so seriously, she seemed to spend half the game on all fours scrabbling for the ball. A serious case of carpet burns on her knees meant she had to wear dark black tights to the office for the next two weeks. As she never wore black tights, she spent an inordinate amount of time explaining her new look to her female colleagues.
*
Friday lunch with a few male friends is generally a safer bet though on occasions there has been a spot of dancing with lamp posts but not by me I might hasten to add. Last Friday though the subject of anal bleaching came up again. I have mentioned it only once but it seems to be an endless source of mirth to my increasingly juvenile friends, who like teenage schoolboys have found an in-joke that will play of years.
This is not necessarily an issue unless they find the need to explain the whole story in detail to the poor young waitress, who was serving the next course and waiting to explain the chef’s concoction before us. Not that it seemed to worry the waitress. Later on finally leaving the restaurant the waitress was outside having a break and was wearing a tank top. On one shoulder was a tattoo of a woman with spread legs and the tagline ‘slippery when wet.’
The result of all this is that I am now known as Mr. Bleacher. I would prefer Jack as in Jack Reacher but I doubt this will stick. Anyway Mr. Bleacher is far better than the nicknames I had in The City, which likewise referred to the nether regions. Needless to say an explanation is only appropriate in the rugby club.
*
Sunday BBQs again should be relatively sedate affairs though last Sunday one man put on a pink dress (yes, you know who you are) and not only that, the dress belonged to someone else’s wife. It’s not the sort of thing I would be doing, at least not in public. However if I cast my mind back I did put on a dress once in public. The university Drama Club had decided to perform a street theatre production of ‘Saint George and the Dragon.’ George was performed by a woman and I played the princess. The good burghers of Swansea gave generously as they seemed used to rugby players in drag. I can only say I did it for charity. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.