The Festive Season in London 2000 Just a short little synopsis on the festivities in London for those who unluckily (yeah, whatever) missed out.... Well as we all know, the "soft" South African's left London for the warmth of the Sun and their families. For the tougher ones, like me (pff), we decided to stay and brave the adversities of the London. As it turned out, for those of us who remained, we had a really good time. No, I'm not joking. We really did have a great time. It started for most with Xmas eve at the Woodman, a night generously organised by the 2 Carlson girls, Sue and Wendy. The event consisted of a finely selected crew of 83 South African's, plus a few other "cheapies" who gate crashed, deciding that they didn't want to pay the R220 for the food. My night (or should I say early afternoon) started just after work at about 2pm, five hours before I was due at the Woodman. (The early day was due to low trading volumes the day before Xmas.) A group of work colleagues and myself ventured to the one of the exorbitantly priced bars that are scattered around Canary Wharf, a by-product of the exorbitant salaries paid to the traders that work for our company and the other investment banks that make Canary Wharf the new investment banking Mecca of Europe. As quickly as it took us to get there (imagine: seven of us in suits sprinting like Cape Coloureds on the run from the police...) our first drinks evaporated before our eyes- or so it seemed!?! We proceeded to transfer the contents of a few more pints to our alcohol storage units (stomachs). In doing this I could feel my wallet become lighter and lighter- funny about that, hey. Suddenly, a good friend from work (Marc) decided that he would institute a Mexican theme to our drinking. Next thing we knew there is a round of tequila slammers in front of us- lick, sip and suck and they were gone- and so was all our strength to maintain a quite afternoon. "My round", someone shouted (could have even been me) and again we were drinking that mistakenly innocent clear looking liquid. "My round", screamed another (could have been me again, can't remember). Many rounds later we were well and an truly unable to complex problems. "What time is it?", I asked with remarkable pronunciation. "Don't know, can't read my watch", replied one of my less drink-hardy friends. "6:15pm", someone answered- a friend had one those Swatches that read the time in massive (said to be stylish) numbers- a watch that could be read from 2 miles away if one were sober. Unfortunately (or in hindsight, thankfully) I had to leave to go the Xmas party at the Woodman. This journey was quite a blur. It seemed as though I was there instantly...Mmm, anyway, I arrived there and accosted Wendy for my ticket. She also commissioned me (Or did I offer? Beg?) to help her hand out tickets to some others. Needless to say I forgot about the other people's tickets, and they had to come find me so they could eat... Talking about eating, a friend of mine (Craig Bernhardt) and myself managed to consume almost none of our dinner. We did however, sit down to eat but instead of navigating the food to our mouths, managed to assemble military style weapons in the form of our arms and launched our potatoes and carrots across to the next table of, soon to be, highly irritated females. (Former) friends of mine from university- Clare Duncan and co. And as our plates of food began to resemble World War 3, we decided that the table we were sitting at was no longer the place to be and ventured off into the abyss of the dance floor. The next few hours became somewhat of a blur, despite the fact that I had settled down from tequilas to only drinking double vodka's and coke (?!?!). I have been told that Craig, Bruce and myself spent the rest of the night acting like little boys- irritating the girls, and being boisterous with the guys. One thing I can remember is "borrowing" some Reindeer horns off one of the potato and carrot wounded girls sitting next to us. Craig had purchased his own, so we don't what any self-respecting males would do: we had horn fights. These floppy, poor excuses for horns only served to provide minor cushioning, in concertina fashion, as our heads clashed together. I think this was the cause of my memory loss, for I cannot think of anything else that would have done this....yeah. I was the first to greet Xmas day the next morning (I am in a terrible, work-induced habit of not being able to sleep past 7am). I must say that I felt remarkably strong, considering my notorious inability to handle a hangover. I managed to stay awake for about 3 minutes before I got bored and decided to go wake the others. They awoke hungry but unfortunately the people staying with me who didn't have to work for two weeks, not mentioning any names (Bruce and Jono Kelmanson), had failed organise anything but a fridge full of alcoholic beverages. Needless to say we did what we had to and drank beer for our Xmas breakfast. At this stage things were looking ominous for the traditional Xmas lunch, as everything was shut. Out of the blue I remembered that I had a surprise present care of my mom and James Fanny. I went and found it in Charlie and Heather's room, who had been colluding to keep the present a surprise... Yeah anyway, as I opened the present my gastric juices started flowing. Bingo! It was a food hamper, strategically purchased by James. "WE HAVE FOOD!" I yelled. Elation does not begin to describe what I saw before me. Jono, Bruce, Darron, Nick (Bowles) and myself proceeded to devour the food like a pack of hyenas. Sure, this wasn't the traditional turkey or leg of ham, but hey, it sure beat beer! The next Xmas hurdle we faced was dinner. Again, unfortunately, like traditional lunches, ours wasn't big enough to fill us up until the next day- it was only meant for one, not five! I think it was when Bruce was lying on our kitchen floor wincing in pain from hunger that he managed open the freezer door and he saw a packet of frozen mince hidden from normal view. Bingo! We had dinner. Darron and Jono forced thawed the mince and viola, we had Xmas mince and pasta. Lucky for us that our taste buds had gone on holiday, because, as hard as they tried, this food barely qualified as food...But it did fill the gap. After the tantalizingly anything-but delectable meal, we managed to muster up enough energy to get out of our bedclothes and we headed off to a little Xmas party at Wendy and Sue's friends place. We played some game where pull out names and have to describe them to our partner without actually saying the name. This was great fun, but some irritating person kept on yelling out the names, even when it wasn't his turn (sorry guys). Boxing Day was greeted with a invite to a champagne breakfast with some South Africans in the North of London (Southgate). The boys piled into Darron's car and we were off in typical male fashion- no directions, but we'll find it attitude. We did eventually get there and had a great time. Jono was accosted by quite a nice looking lady, begging him to stay the night with her. He managed to fight his hormonal instincts and declined the offer. Funny, she was a really nice girl- it's amazing what a few bottles of red wine, gluvine and champagne do to one. I must admit though, Kelmo did himself no favors by yelling "I need a Vet", mistakenly, instead of "Doctor" after hitting me in the leg and hurting his hand. The problem here? She was a vet and obviously responded accordingly. The next few days were ones of work and sleep for me. I knew I had to recharge the batteries for the New Year's bash. New Years eve came and we decided to have a party at our place. This was an excellent idea with just friends sitting, drinking and having fun together. As the night progressed Jono became all tough and started to issue out shots of vodka. I cleverly nominated myself for fines master which circumvented much of pain at others fining me. I set about fining. Fine, fine, fine- and drink they did. Everyone was having to drink- except for yours truly. Eventually they realised that I was not having my share and I found out that neat vodka doesn't taste great (amazing the revelations that occur in a drunk state!?!). The drink-fest then manifested itself into a mass rumble on our lounge room floor with me generously donating my body for the bottom of an eight man pile-on. Three of rumblers weighing up around 100kg. Coupled with this was Charlie "Rock-n' Roll Wrestler" Jenkins, doing his lunge jumps from the top of our couches onto the other seven men. Injuries were aplenty the next day once we all had sobered up. (Mine: bruised jaw, bruised knee, twisted ankle, bruised forearm and numerous carpet roasties- something tells me that being on the bottom of these wasn't a very clever idea.) After adamantly vouching that I would not be like the rest of the sheep and head into the city centre earlier in the day, I went. By the time everyone had got ready to go I had forgotten my resolution and eagerly followed- much to the displeasure of the people on the tube that had to suffer our drunken stupor. I am glad I did go though, town was very cool- that is up until we had to go home, which took us over 2.5 hours. When in town Kelmo, Craig and myself climbed the only tree in Westminster Abbey leaving Bruce, his score (Sarah), his former score (Minka- no she isn't an Aborigine...not that there would be anything wrong with that), Nick trying to score Bruce's former score (Minka), Jon Howlett and Candice below. We climbed up about 10 meters which was good for me as I am petrified of heights...could have been something to do with the Smirnoff and Red Bulls- mmm, I wonder.  Kelmo climbed the highest and began shaking the branch he was one which caused a snowfall of spikey tree seedlings all over the people below, much to their dislike, making up for the lack of genuine snowfall. From our heights we managed to get an incredible view of the Thames which was on fire with fireworks (funnily enough), a few million people scattered around London Bridge and sounds of the Abbey's bells going off. It was really a truly amazing experience.  Not because it was the Millennium, but because I was with great people in a wonderful atmosphere. Well, as you have probably gleaned from Festivity report, the season here has been quite a party.  Shitey weather, but a great jol.  I hope you are all well and had as good a time as me and my bunch of misfit mates. This is a personal website intended for Justin, his friends and family.