Party- the low down.

I'm sure you're all dying to hear about how the party went and I only wish I was able to tell you with any degree of certainty.

Unfortunately my funny story telling abilities are hampered somewhat by just how trashed I got, but I'm pretty sure a good time was had by all (especially me).

These are my top funny party moments (though some are funnier in hindsight and some are more cringe worthy)

1) Steve in silver boots

Having size 6 feet is often problematic for Steve. In most situations it's because shops just don't start their men's ranges from such a tiny size. At parties- it's because women all insist on him wearing their shoes. At one stage I remember Steve staggering into my bedroom wearing brown knee high furry boots and the next thing I know, he's wearing some metallic silver pointy knee highs with silver heels. He always pretends he hates it, but I recall him posing for some dubious pictures. Keep an eye on face book for these.

2) Pseudo lessie behaviour

Do you think perhaps it might have been a boy who suggested it was a good idea for all us girls to compare the colours of our nipples whilst kissing and being photographed? Hmmmmmm, I would have thought so. It's a good job we were sober enough to tut and cast our eyes to heaven and pull our tops up to our chins shaking our heads disapprovingly. Yes, this IS what happened. As Lindsey said, let's hope none of us ever become famous, put it this way, we won't be applying for any reality TV shows too smartish. Although we'd be bloody good in them.

3) Lindsey and the album

I found Lindsey on her bed with a tortured looking little brother by her side. She was thumbing through old albums talking in detail about every last shot and explaining EXACTLY how she felt about them. Her little brother was trying so hard to make appropriate comments and not look ridiculously bored. She then told him she'd seen him with an erection- embarrassing sister, eat your heart out.

4) Fireworks

Despite being a very budding and talented illustrator, our confidence was not 100% invested in Matt Ox's ability to create a seamless and safe fireworks display. In fact, at 11pm, when we all gathered on the pavement and peered up at the roof terrace the rockets which peeked over the top reminded me of sniper's guns and I was all too aware that there was a VERY good chance that we could well be in the line of fire. Thankfully it was all fine, and Matt got to blow up some things which kept him happy. Lots of the fireworks shot over into trees so we couldn't see them from the pavement, but they made very loud bangs, and let's face it, that's all that really matters.

5) The copper

Ok, so inviting a copper to a house party isn’t the first thing that springs to mind, but he's a very good old friend of mine and luckily he was easy to pick out with his short back and sides and stripy shirt. Whilst he tried very hard to be cool about the debauchery others didn't do quite as good a job reciprocating. In fact at any one time I think there was a good 2 metre gap around him and I could sense lots of paranoia and gossiping. Thankfully he left at midnight before it all got very out of hand.

6) The lost voice

Where ever Laura goes, men fall in love with her and my party was, of course, no exception. By the end of the night, she'd done so much chattering, smoking and social butterflying, she came bursting into my room, flung herself on the bed and tried to talk and only high pitched squeals and screeching came out. We promptly administered more booze and fags and she was fine.

7) The Phantom smearer

We've all seen it in public loos, but yes, it was on show in the downstairs bathroom. Someone had taken it upon themselves to smear poo on the wall next to the toilet. When I told Steve he said to me that we should be pleased that there were no white hand towels in the bathroom- needless to say at a recent party he'd attended someone had taken it upon themselves to wipe their bottom on the hand towel and leave behind all kinds of evidence. Apparently we got away lightly. It didn't feel like it yesterday morning with a stinking hangover and a jay cloth trying not to gag.

8) Sam's tights

Sam managed to get dishevelled very rapidly throughout the party and at one point looked very much like her and her tights had had a very nasty encounter with a bramble bush. Perhaps it was just that Gavin couldn't contain himself, but at the end of the evening, she rather flamboyantly declared they were coming off and they did- with legs flailing and a' kimbo. Marvellous.

I'm sure there was much more, but I'll need to see some pictures first to jog my memory.

I lost a £25 Marks and Spencer's voucher, some green beads, some shoes and all of my weed. Very annoying. Thankfully Sam had all but one of these things. Hurrah! Steve managed to misplace £50, which wasn't so helpfully returned. What a wally.

A massive thanks in particular to all the Brighton contingent who made a huge effort to come all the way from the seaside, it meant so much to me....and I can't believe you all went home at 5am....nutters! To Jonathan- I'm so gutted you missed out on the fun, you would have had a blast- next time.

The Birthday brat

Tonight is the beginning of the birthday festivities, or 'ali-day' as I call it.

There's a special song I sing to Steve on my birthday

'It's Ali, Ali-day
Do what I want
And do what I say
On Ali Ali-day
I always get my way'

You get the picture, basically, I'm a brat. It only really works on this one day of the year, the rest I'd be told very squarely to fuck right off by everyone, most of all Steve.

This year I have excelled myself in the birthday stakes. Tonight I'm being taken to my favourite restaurant Chez Bruce which you'll all have heard me bang on about a fair amount before. Tomorrow night I'm out with my housemates for a couple of drinks around Belsize and then off to see my mum for dinner out on Saturday night (much to S's disgust as he's missing football AND rugby- but, I reminded him of the poem above so he knows he's got no choice).

Then we've got the joint birthday party coming up, followed by 2 1/2 weeks in Thailand diving. And in hindsight somewhat cheekily I also asked for a present- this lovely handbag.

Sometimes when I get told I'm demanding and high maintenance I get genuinely offended. At those times I must remember to look back and re-read this post.

I am extremely lucky. And I know that what matters more than all of this is being loved, having wonderful friends, being happy and being made to laugh and in those respects I'm blessed.

I wonder if I could get away with asking for a matching wallet?

Party OCD.

It’s just over 4 months since we moved into our new house in North London and it seems like we are long overdue a party. So we’ve decided to have one- a joint my birthday, Lindsey’s birthday and fireworks night party as a very loose excuse for one. Now as those of you who know me at all will know- I’m not exactly relaxed when it comes to parties, in fact when they are my own I tend to be a real worry wart. This is a real bind as I’d love to be one of those people who just invites the whole world, doesn’t worry about anything to do with their house and allows any number of people to stay over and sleep anywhere. But no, this doesn’t come naturally to me. In the slightest. In fact I’m a party host anal retentive.

My thought processes go- oh god, where will everyone sleep, how will they get home, will our lovely new carpet get trashed, will we f**k off our neighbours, will we have to spend the whole weekend cleaning up other people’s mess, will people respect the house and behave, will I have time to pack for holiday the next day and will I have to politely entertain people on Sunday when I’m going to want to leave and never come back (well, at least until people have gone and the mess is minimised).

In Compton Avenue whenever there was a party, I’d get a couple of hours kip in, leave first thing, go back to whoever’s house was nearest and avoid all of the early morning noise and mingingness only to return when the coast was clear and I could crack on with some serious cleaning. Hoovering around bodies is a time consuming bore.

I’ll never forget when Dan offered to host a party for Natalia for some reason (birthday I think) and some bright spark bought half a ton of confetti which was scattered all over the floor to release it’s hot pink, green, blue colours into the lovely cream carpet. I was apoplectic. She didn’t even live with us and I remember on said occasion I was so distraught I had to wake up early to start cleaning up.

So you can see, hosting parties is a distressing affair for me. Thank god I have two level headed, relaxed co-hosts to ease the pain and share the love.

Don’t worry though it’s going to be a blast, and it’ll be even more fun for all if you all keep to the following simple rules:

1) Shoes off at the front door
2) No red wine to be brought into the house at any costs
3) No excessively loud music
4) No laughing
5) No mingling
6) No-one up past 3am
7) No-one passing out in the toilet and making it a no-go-zone
8) Strictly no flirting or copping off.

Enjoy!

(The truth of the matter is that I’ll get hammered and won’t give a toss re: any of the above, but as a worrier, I have to think about all of this and the promptly forget it all and no doubt I’ll be the one sloshing red wine up the walls and knocking on Mrs Miggin’s door to see if she wants to join in)

A hellova weekend!

There’s a pattern developing in my life and it goes something like this…..Ali always feeling shocking on a Monday morning. Ok, so it’s fairly obvious, but I would have thought at the ‘not-so’ tender age of almost 30, I would feel rested and recuperated after my weekends, not like I’ve been dragged through every hedge in Hampton Court maze backwards. This time however, it was worth it, ohhh yes it was.

Friday night started early thanks to some kid on work experience taking out the power supply to the entire of East London, well, Hoxton and Shoreditch at the very least. Workers spilled out on to the streets in what can only be described as a carnival atmosphere and the pub tills were ringing (or not as they weren’t working) but the empty ice cream tubs were filling up with change and the numerically challenged bar maids were working hard at their mental arithmetic. At one stage I got 3 pints, a cider and a Pimms for just over £7. Thank the lord for ditzy barmaids.

Somewhere along the line, I realised that the promise of a heavy Friday evening loomed in the distance and my sensible streak kicked in, so I jumped on a train to Brighton where thankfully Anita’s cleaner let me in and I started my packing with a booze fuelled-vengeance. 3 bin liners of clothes to throw away later I realised I was running late for the pub so hastily got changed into one of the few things which hadn’t been thrown away and headed to the Crescent to meet Dave, Laura, Sam and a fleeting visit from Vic. As you’d expect with me and Sam around, our thoughts soon turned to our stomachs and we headed to the Thai Orchid on Preston Street for some dinner.

After that we headed over to Pinchos People a fairly innocuous looking tapas bar with a lovely secret…..its cocktails. By this stage, we were down to 3 and Dave sat looking somewhat bemused with his rather small and camp looking ‘challenging’ Manhattan cocktail whilst Sam waxed lyrical about flavours, and subtlety, and camomile foam, and I checked out the barmen and wondered, if single, whether I might fancy any of them. In the end, intricate facial hair put me off. It was wonderful and we whiled away several hours talking rubbish and drinking lovely drinks on a comfy leather sofa. Actually, the reality was that Sam and Dave snuggled up on the leather sofa and I sat on the hard trendy looking chair, but believe you me, I was in NO position to interject in the ongoing love-in between these two.

The night continued in an almost inevitable demise into drunken, incoherent rambling on Dave’s sofa, and when the sun came up and was showing no signs of going away, we realised it was high time we called it a night…day….whatever. My fondest memories of that evening…..Dave’s guitar- pure genius, and also, Sam and Dave telling each other how much they admired each other…..seriously cute.

Saturday morning was spent in a fuggy, muggy haze of blurriness and hungoverness. I managed against the odds to get the packing licked in a couple of hours and when I realised that Saturday night was a right-off (Brightonians….no stamina!) I jumped on the fast train to Clapham for a sedate night in The Goat. Ahem. A bottle of wine later I was steaming, and realised I’d overstepped the mark when I had spent over 30mins not with my boyfriend, but being entertained by a group of 5 scally blokes from Newcastle showing me ‘magic’. Being a girl, I love a bit of magic, and some of the tricks, including the old ‘20p in the becks bottle’ were simply awe inspiring. The fog lifted during the ‘mind reading’ trick, when I was tempted away from the pack with a particularly cheeky chappy who told me to whisper the same of a ‘secret famous person’ in his ear- which his friend would magically guess and took the opportunity to have a grope of my arse. Cue, Ali centre stage, exit right. Pronto.

Having returned to the relative ‘safety’ of my pack of drunken footie players (euuch) I once again unwittingly found myself in the middle of a most unsavoury discussion with a drunken centre back who was telling me how awfully untrusting his girlfriend was and how she controlled his life. At one point he told me that Steve was casting us angry glares and I beckoned him over to demonstrate to him how unthreatening this conversation was….at the exact point he arrived, this bloke says to him ‘how much would it cost to take your girlfriend home for the night’. Oh god….potential fight! Thankfully not as it turned out, it was an entirely innocent question, meant purely as the bloke in question wanted me to ‘talk to his girlfriend to sort her out’. I’m sure that would have gone down brilliantly and not been perceived as ATALL arseholish. Steve thankfully reacted in a grownup fashion and turned his back on us, at which point this bloke (no wonder his poor girlfriend has the trust issues) said something along the lines of ‘There are lots of reasons why I’d like to take you home, and if your boyfriend knew about them, he wouldn’t be best pleased’. Yuck. This would NEVER happen in Brighton….would it?

I pulled a face and decided to stick firmly to Steve’s side all night, which is tough when you’re really drunk and the room is spinning.

Yesterday, thank god, a chilled day in the pub followed by a home made thai red curry and watching, ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ which made me laugh and cry and is therefore brilliant.

And so we face another week my friends….roll on next weekend.

The uber pad....almost

It seems the long, and at times, horrendously depressing wait to find somewhere to live might soon be over. Yes, Lindsey sent an email at 12.47pm (not that I was clock watching) to let me and Nat (and Sam) know that the place has real potential.

It’s not a show house, gleaming and gorgeous and perfect, but it is a big, spacious, light and airy Victorian conversion, set over 3 floors, has a roof terrace, has views from said roof terrace of Hampstead Heath, is ten minutes walk from both Hampstead Heath and Camden Lock, a 20 minute bike ride into work for both Lindsey and I, 8 minutes walk from the nearest Northern line stop and if Foxtons had it on their books, it would cost in the region of £500-600 a week (although the landlord would only see £1.97 of that). The beauty of it is, as we’re going to be privately renting it directly from the landlord, we can afford it. Infact, we can afford it and still have pocket money for frequent shopping, partying and eating out. Thank the lord, hallelujah, etc etc.

Of course there’s the minor point that neither Nat nor I have seen it yet, but we’ll both be doing that on Friday and from then on, it should be a done deal. The place is free from mid-late May, so I’ll be doing some of my finest sweet talking and grovelling to the poor people in my life who ensure my presence, or the presence of my possessions.

Soon after we move in we’ll be planning our first house party, and we’ll expect a lovely big Brighton contingent to show up and make the most of the roof terrace and the ignoramus (spell check put that in and it made me laugh….I was trying to say gi-normous) lounge, from which Gavin can pump out tunes whilst we all mingle appreciatively. I’m moving to London. I hope I like it.

You too can have a perfect life....at a cost

Well, it turned out to be quite a hectic weekend, a quick dash to the Natural History museum for the Shell Wildlife Photographer of the year exhibition- well worth a visit if you happen to find yourselves around the South Ken area, and then Gavin's 30th birthday party, which strangely enough, marked the end of any further weekend activity. Not to mention the fact that it has left me without voice, and with a nasty hacking cough.

This is the mark of great party I suppose and thanks to Sam and Gavin, for a heck of a bash. I haven't arrived at a party at midnight recently to find the carnage is already so extreme that there are several bodies in beds, and people pegging it to the toilet to empty their stomachs at regular intervals. I was well positioned in the bedroom to watch all these antics with great amusement, and it made me happy to see well, we can all still be very childish when we want.

Sunday morning I was lying in bed battling with the sleep demons and I received a call from an old work colleague. Strange, as this was someone who never calls, and whose number was really only my phone due to an occasional 'car share to work' agreement some years ago. When you get an out of the blue call like that from someone fairly distant, it always alarms me somewhat. I suppose it's out of my comfort zone.

Perhaps it was rude, but I was too hungover and pickled to consider answering a call and making small talk so I let the call go to my voicemail, and out of curiosity, listened to the message. Alarm Bells. My friend spoke of a 'great thing' she's been doing, a course in London which has 'changed her life' and she wanted me to come along on Tuesday night so 'I could experience it'. She ended the call saying she was so excited about the prospect of sharing this with me, and would phone back in a couple of hours.

I could think only of two words.

Landmark Forum.

If you're someone who's ever had any dealings with this organisation, either directly or through a third party, then you'll be familiar with my reaction. Perhaps if you have 5 minutes you could even go as far as to plug Landmark into google and see what is said. I think you'll find that it will go some way to validate what I am about to type.

The reason I'm familiar with Landmark is that one of my close friends got involved with them and enrolled in several of their courses a couple of years ago. At the time she was perhaps somewhat vulnerable, questioning what she wanted and needed from her life, questioning the way she interacted with others and basically suffering from a period of low self esteem. She discovered Landmark and she loved it. It had an alarmingly powerful impact on her, and she preached it's effectiveness to all who would listen. She was increasingly encouraged to promote the course to all her friends, to organise introduction meetings and to 'push' the ideas.

The frightening effectiveness of the thought process behind Landmark makes its success easy to understand. Once you are enlightened to their thought patterns, you then take it upon yourself to spread the word. To improve your friends lives as well. It's a lovely sentiment. I want to make my friends lives richer, happier and more content.

But is it? Is it a nice thing to make people feel that if they don't want to attend this course, it's because of fear and cowardice. That they owe it to themselves and their friends to undertake this and to spread the word and that if they don't they are somehow living a lessor life.

These are the Landmark Forum's 'seven commandments' for being an extraordinary person:

· Be Racket-Free: give up being right - even when you know you were.

· Be Powerful: be straight in your communication and take what you get.

· Be Courageous: acknowledge your fear (not necessarily get rid of it) and then act.

· Be Peaceful: give up the interpretation that there's something wrong.

· Be Charismatic: give up trying to get somewhere. Be entirely fulfilled in the present moment.

· Be Enrolling: share your new possibilities in such a way that others are touched, moved and inspired.

· Be Unreasonable: in expectations of yourself and others beyond what you would think they are capable of.

Funny how they don't mention the ability to be an effective salesperson, to be manipulative and glib and make money by trading on people's fears and vulnerabilities. This is essentially a massive commercial organisation, and they make a lot of money. People are encouraged to pyramid sell, to friends and families.

I love the idea of enlightenment, but I don't believe it should come at a financial cost, or that it should come as a result of peer pressure, guilt or self-doubt. If you make a decision to make your life happier, turn to trusted sources for ways to help you, and if you ask me, don't trust the Landmark.

By the way, the friend I mentioned who completed all of their courses, she won't have anything to do with the forum now, and certainly wouldn't recommend them to anyone.

Be wary.

xmas party....the aftermath

Here's a thinker.

Last night it was my inaugural Christmas party at my new job so of course, I was on my best behaviour. I only drank 3 glasses of champagne at the reception, one glass of wine over dinner, several vodka and tonics and on the whole, I maintained my dignity (although I did dance to 'pass the duchy on the left hand side' which was wholly inappropriate given it was a law firm bash).

Over the course of the evening, I made polite and random chit chat with lots of people, some better than others. This morning I received an e-mail from one of the said 'chit chatees'asking me out for a drink.

This poses many issues for me in that:

a)I have a boyfriend who is a bit of a legend
b)No matter what I said or how I phrased it, I am now faced with the inevitable difficult moments in the lift or by the water cooler
c)Quite frankly, the morning after an office Christmas party, could anyone stomach going for a drink with ANYONE? The odds are stacked against any man brave enough to try this tactic.

So after some painful e-mail exchanges, eventually Mr S got the message, and instead of being hurt or cross or nasty, he said that he thought I was fabulous, and if I ever changed my mind, he was super keen. And, despite the slightly cringeworthy nature of the whole thing, I felt warm and glowy.

Afterall, we all like to feel appreciated.