10 Reasons Not To Get Drunk At Your Office Christmas Party

1. You may end up telling your...er...uptight (and pregnant for the second time round) manager: “I did worry about you having a baby...you and your husband were both already so highly strung, I thought becoming parents would send you over the edge!”
2. You could find yourself throwing your arms around the boss at the end of the evening, sobbing “You are the best boss I’ve ever had!”...not quite the great compliment it may seem, when everyone knows you’ve only worked for two companies in your life.
3. You might go around telling everyone that So-and-so (who fortunately is not actually at the office party this year) is "really quite useless and it’s a wonder she has not been fired by now".

4. You may get so drunk already at the pre-dinner drinks that you get a serious case of the munchies, and find yourself ordering a plate of nachos....nachos that get added to the total bar bill (£4,500), incurring a 10% service charge on the whole bill and meaning that those nachos cost your boss an extra £450!
5. You could still be so drunk from those pre-dinner drinks (the lousy nachos did nothing to soak up the alcohol) that you wind up falling asleep at the dinner table with your fork mid air, then later slump face first into your food.
6. You may have sober colleagues with cameras at hand to record you falling face first into your food...colleagues who print copies of those photos and distribute them around the whole office the following day.

7. You might convince yourself that you are The Dancing Queen (or Karaoke King) and subject your colleagues to appalling entertainment all night... colleagues who once again have those cameras to hand, and have also now befriended you on Facebook.
8. You may not notice you're suffering a wardrobe malfunction and be revealing far more of yourself to your colleagues than is quite frankly decent.

9. You could fall out of the party venue, pirouette helplessly on your 9 inch heels, then stumble into the arms of a passing stranger, exclaiming “That darn pavement is very dangerous!” (yes, deceptively flat, isn’t it?)
10. You may well suffer short-term memory loss and never know how on earth you got from London’s Soho district to Charing Cross station one mile away... but next thing you know you are on a train that is miraculously headed homewards (and at least you have the sense to call your husband and ask him to phone you when you're close to your home station, thus ensuring  you are awake to get off that train and don't end up riding to the end of the line)

These are lessons I’ve learnt over the past few years....from watching the drunken debauchery of my colleagues, I hasten to add....OK, OK, I may be guilty of that last one but that was back in the bad old days when I worked for the delightful swearing, shouting obnoxious boss and we were all determined to drink his inflated bank balance dry. Since then, though, I limit my intake to just enough to be sociable, but sober enough to watch the antics unfolding all around me.

How about you...did you think alcohol and office Christmas parties are a good combination?



Wardrobe Malfunction

I recently decided that I’d go the whole hog with the Aikido lark and invest in a gi...thereby at least I can look the part even if I have absolutely no idea of what I’m doing!

Was there ever a less flattering outfit on the planet? It’s almost as bad as my old school uniform (the delightful combo of a navy blue, below the knee length box pleat skirt and beige safari suit style top) for adding the pounds onto my already ample derrière. Seriously, Skeletal Spice (Victoria Beckham) would look like she’s been eating all the pies in this gear.

Anyways, I’m not in this for the fashion stakes. What I am more worried about is having a wardrobe malfunction akin to Janet Jackson’s infamous Super Bowl incident back in 2004. The last thing I need is my ukemi turning into a “viewkemi”, much to delight of the male populace of the dojo. And thus I am investing in many high necked white t-shirts to wear under the jacket and over a super-shock-absorbing sports bra...I reckon my hips will take care of holding up the trousers.

Many moons ago, I had the dubious pleasure of working with an exceptionally accident-prone girl. I’m not sure if she was scatterbrained or just really unlucky, but every day seemed to spell fresh disasters for her....like the time she left her laptop on a train, the laptop that held the only copy of her PhD thesis that she’s been writing up for over 6 months and hadn’t once thought to make a back-up! Not long after this tragedy, she was on her way to work when she inadvertently lost her skirt in a freak accident involving rapidly closing train doors. Mortified, the poor girl had to cover her modesty with her empty laptop case, jump into the first taxi cab to draw up outside the station, who was willing to whisk her away to the high street for some hasty clothes’ shopping before work. As it was, she already had a bit of a reputation around the office for wearing outfits that most other people would not consider appropriate business attire. Golden rule, ladies...if you’re going to wear a lace-up blouse probably more at home on the set of “Pirates of the Caribbean”, don’t forget your bra...

Arrrrrrr!

Up Close And Personal

Dear Fellow Aikidoer

You may have noticed that we’re spending quite a lot of time together, barefoot in the dojo. Therefore, can I please ask you just one small thing? If you have toenails that look anything like this....

Get a frikking pedicure! You could take someone’s eye out with those things....and since I am forced to spend an unusually long period of time staring at your feet when it’s my turn to play uke (attacker) and you take my balance...I don’t particularly want to be eyeballing those freaky little piggies.

While we’re on the topic of personal hygiene, you may want to reconsider your choice of anti-perspirant deodorant...by which I mean, if you don’t normally wear any, it’s a ripe old time to start. This would be particularly helpful when we’re practising irimi nage, when my face is pretty much stuck underneath your armpit.

Yours truly

Ninja Nat

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Back in the days when I still worked in an office, I had one particularly pongy colleague who sat directly behind me. He was a bit of a boozer, usually arriving late at work in the mornings, unshowered and still reeking like the end of the night before. He also smoked heavily, taking frequent ciggie breaks, and thus smelling ever ranker as the day wore on. I was convinced that a cat must have at some point peed in his shoes, so stale and sour was the scent that took command of the air whenever he walked past.

Eventually, we could take it no more...the whiff of this unwashed wonder was aggravating the morning sickness in one of my pregnant workmates, and we were all struggling to focus through the fetid fumes. I decided to go and have a subtle word with our manager, in her blissfully fresh-fragranced, air-conditioned office. I hoped she would tactfully convince “Pepe Le Peu” to perhaps take the odd bath and wash his clothes, maybe go easy on the booze and fags on school nights.

I’m not sure if something got lost in translation ("Pepe" had recently moved to London from Paris) or if my manager just chickened out from telling him outright that he stank (he was pretty crap at his job too), but somehow he walked away from their meeting thinking he just needed to tone down his garlicky food a clove or two. "Pepe’s" solution....to freshen his breath by LOUDLY munching on mints the WHOLE FRIKKING DAY LONG. So, not only did we have to put up with the assault of his fruity odour on our nostrils, we now had to contend with a constant crunching sound in the background.

Luckily for us, he really did stink at his job, and when his contract came to an end a few weeks later....it was not renewed.

C’est la vie!