Pynchon

Photographs have been circulating of the last Company Christmas Party. I am in a number of these photographs.

I am fat, bloated and red-faced.

I am totally caned.

In every photo my mouth is open. No doubt I am in the act of sharing some of my wisdom with the world.

My beautiful psychedelic blue shirt is creased beyond recognition.

In one photo I am groping my friend Danielle Frank. Danielle is laughing. (Danielle's great. One of my best friends at work. Big tits. Actually big everything. Funny, unpretentious and working class. Every day I tell her how nice she looks and every day she asks me what I am after. She says that I am responsible for her child.... No. You don't understand. She says that I am to blame for her getting together with her boyfriend, now husband.

Danielle and I were once doing a Saturday shift and chewing the fat about boyfriends and girlfriends. Work? Ha ha ha ha ha! She told me all about the guy she was with (who was nice and safe and boring) and another guy she had just met that she really liked (who was a bit of a bad boy). I told her to shag both of them, because a fuck is a fuck, after all. I was joking, but she did shag both of them and ended up with the bad boy, who turned out to not be such a bad boy after all.)

In another photo I am intently gazing down the cleavage of the lovely Sandy Trout. I am smiling. Sandy is looking at the camera with a glazed look on her face. She looks as drunk as I am. (Sandy broke up with her husband Jack over Christmas. It's a terrible shame, because they are both good people. Lorraine and I went to a couple of the BBC Good Food Show events with them. Sandy has wasted no time and has now got together with one of the idiot analysts from upstairs. Freddie Podge, who is a nice guy and is good enough to give Lorraine and me a lift home from work now and again, said that Sandy and the analyst were practically taking each other's clothes off at the Christmas Party. I don't remember that at all.)

In another photo I look like the bastard son of Keith Moon and Oliver Reed. I am wild eyed and my arms are in the air. I look like I have just come from a fight.

In another photo I am kissing some bloke on the cheek. He looks kind of sexy, actually...

The worrying thing about all of the above is that I remember none of it. Perhaps I blacked out. Good job I didn't kill anyone, isn't it? I don't actually remember having very much to drink at all. I remember getting to the party and I remember Lucy Toad's dress. I remember talking to Danielle and I remember thinking that it was a quite good party, if somewhat scaled down from some of the parties of the past. I remember going home.

I've told Lorraine about the photos. She shrugged and said that I always turn into Mr. Nasty once I've had too much to drink. She said that the loss of memory is a new one.

I worry that I am turning into my Dad.

I am now older than my dad by about 8 days. I didn't mark that anniversary.

Anyway...

We're out tomorrow on a trip to the smoke to meet... Well, actually to meet some of the people that drop by here occasionally. I'm looking forward to it. Should be good. Lorraine may be there, or she may not. If she's not there, I'll explain on the day. If she is, well, we won't mention it, will we?

The first pint's on me. (Er... Maybe not.)