8

We were based at a hotel for the New Year. It wasn't my idea, but it was a great one and meant we were within easy staggering distance of the various festivities. Starting with a room already supplied with Champagne and where coffee arrived almost as one thought of the idea.

Then there were the afternoon cakes, which were somehow designed to look like fashion items from the current season. Kind of Hermes handbag shaped sponges and Nina Ricci inspired slurpy things - about ten designers were featured in this little procession of cakeness. There are pictures but they are on another phone and may take a while to extricate. Suffice to say "Yum".

A little later it was time to wander across to the Apollo for the New Years Eve performance of Wicked, playing to a packed house and one of the few shows in London starting at a normal mid evening time of seven thirty. Already by this time, the effects of gentle imbibing were beginning to be felt and at the end of the show it was a decision about whether to head for the Thames in the drizzling rain or to find another venue. the Blue Bar won and we decided to experiment with the cocktails which came in tall and rather exquisite crystal glasses (or in one case complete with the shaker which contained another full measure of whatever it was in every round). Pacing was important because as the midnight hour approached, the clubby dance atmosphere flicked up a notch as the waitresses in their glittering masks started to dispense party crackers and complementary champagne.

The arrival of midnight was probably something of a guess, but we all celebrated together, whether it was the right time or not and then after the flip into 2008, we continued for another hour or so before deciding to head for the hotel room.

Luckily Brunch was served until one p.m. today. They must have known.

Technorati Tags: rashbre, wicked, new+year, 2008, london, show, berkeley, hotel, pret-a-portea, champagne, blue+bar

Happy New Year

Enjoy the transition from 2007 into 2008 an' tak' a right good-will draught!

There is fun going forward.

sugar plum

As we wend our way through the twisting narrow alleys known as Camden Passage, we were on our way from The Living Room to Sadler's Wells Theatre, to partake of the Christmas evening tradition to watch pantomime or ballet. This year it was Nutcracker, which usually features orphans and toy soldiers springing to life.

But this was Matthew Bourne's version, which manages to be extremely pink. Bourne is well known for the version of Swan Lake which also featured in the film of Billy Elliot. If you don't know what I'm talking about then just assume its, well, alternative.

And this version uses the traditional Tschaikowsky score, and does indeed start in an orphan's home. But fairly rapidly the settings diverge as well as some of the moves which twist from the choreography that Bourne applies to this dream sequence of a story. So by the sugar rush of the second half, when the cast are visiting sweetie land, it is, indeed, pantomime mixed with ballet. Packed house playing to the seasonal spirits.

Technorati Tags: rashbre, living+room, camden, sadlers+wells, angel, islington, london, nutcracker, matthew+bourne, ballet,

smooth

After a while, everything starts to be capable of being covered in chocolate, if you have one of these things. It arrived under the Christmas tree along with some bars of chocolate, so what else but to give it a spin? Instructions are for wimps, so the first attempt created an interesting jamming of the equipment, before eventually the chocolate started to flow. As you can see in the picture, the earlier dipping of strawberries, pineapple and other fruit gradually deteriorated to whatever was available, such as the salted mini-pretzel getting the treatment in the picture.

Any suggestions for imaginative uses for a half kilo of very smooth chocolate?

buzzin'

Boxing Day became the day for quizzes and general frivolity. In between the earnest music quiz with some 45 tracks crammed into 15 minutes there were other rounds including the buzzer based movie questions and not forgetting the later turn towards karaoke...wait for it...RnB style.

So no need for Amy Winehouse today because we'd decided to make our own equivalently intoxicating music.

evidence

My little trick worked.

The combination of a mince pie, some sherry and a carrot was too much for Santa. I have photographed the after effects from the next morning. Clearly someone had descended through the chimney (I'd made sure the fire was out). They'd eaten the mince pie, drank the sherry and the entire carrot was gone. There were also some new mystery parcels under the tree. We must have been more nice than naughty.

xmas music quiz

In between the quaffing, turkey, mince pies and general revelry, there will be the statutory rashbre xmas music quiz. If you are a physical visitor to rashbre acres over the festive season, please don't cheat and listen. Anyone else is free to take a peek and even guess the tracks. They start slow and easy and get faster and more tricky, including a few mashups and some obligatory WIll Young tracks demanded for inclusion by Julie. One click on the picture is all it takes to be transported to quiz-land.

party games

Survivors of rashbre central's previous seasonal festivities will know that there's a certain point when the silly hats and party games make an appearance. Not the Nintendo / X-Box360 / Playstation variety, but games involving old wrapping paper, sticky tape, fruit and the like. For the convenience of others, here's a few sure fire winners, which can be played at everything from amateur through to full Pro standard.

Required items: Wrapping paper, sticky tape, magazines, newspapers, highlighter pen, pins

1) Guess the name : Yes - simply providing the guests with paper hats or pin on labels which they can't see with the name of a sleb (celebrity) on it. They have to guess with the Yes/No answers. Classed as an icebreaker. Marilyn Monroe, George Bush, Frankenstein, Albert Einstein, Babe Ruth, Jason Bourne, 007, Mickey Mouse, Madonna, Britney Spears, Alesha. You get the idea.
2) Dress the person : Kinetic Game, two teams: 2-5 minutes. Select someone to be dressed using either old wrapping paper or a couple of recent magazines or newspapers.
3) Kipper racing : multiple teams. needs a long clear indoor space. cut or tear a largish fish shape from a sheet of wrapping paper or anything similar to hand. Add detail such as a hole for the eye, maybe a dorsal fin. Lie them flat on the floor and give other team members further sheets of paper/magazines to use to create air currents to propel the fish from a start line to a distant improvised finishing line.
4) Tell a tale : Pre select some groups of 7 unusual words from a magazine or newspaper article. Hand them to each team and and ask each team member in turn to tell a story using the seven words. Other teams have to try to guess the words.
(Example words from random article today : luckier; heterosexual; chevrolet; banana; promoted; quitter; eggs. and from another page: emissions; cruise; leisurely; overcome; scoop; howling; endurance...you get the idea.)
5) Pass the orange : Why wait until after the dinner has finished to play this game? goes great with coffee.
6) Pictionary: drawing fast pictures based upon words. The boxed set is best for this one.
7) GrEEn GlaSS dOOr : The person in charge suggests playing this and that everyone else can try to be selected to go through the green glass door by suggesting appropriate pairs of things. Things that get in are a pOOl but no water; glaSS but no picture; MiRRor but no reflection (ie the first thing needs a double letter in it.. Play till last person gets it)
8) GGD variants : Play GGD (7) where instead of double letters, each sentence said by the next person has to start with a vowel "...and blah blah bla; ...or blah blah blah ...obviously" and another variant vowel/then consonant and another variant is start with next letter of alphabet.
9) Alphabet Game : Choose topic (Animals, Cars, Candy Bars, Popstars, Drinks). Start at A and round robin through to Z.
10) Stirring the Mush : Announce you are stirring the mush and (eg stand up, sit down, scratch your ear etc). Then start stirring the mush by ay hand/body gesture you like. The invite someone to copy. the trick is thay have to do what you did BEFORE you started stirring the mush (eg scratch ear etc). Tell them whether they have passed or not then select next 'victim'. Repeat until all have worked it out.
11) Erect-a-pup : More newspaper for this two in -oner. Part one. Teams. who can make the longest tube in 2 minutes from rolled up paper? Sounds easy. Just watch what happens. Part Two. Now, in another three minutes make a model life sized puppy out of tubes of newspaper. Warning that some puppies will have 3, 5 legs at the end of this.

I think thats enough to get started. No animals harmed in the testing of these entertainments. You'll have to email me for the (ahem) rules of the frying pan and wooden spoon game...and don't forget charades!

Technorati Tags: rashbre, Xmas, party, games, party+games, icebreakers, holiday, christmas, festive, silly, crackers, seasonal, fun, charades, party+animals, erect-a-pup, stir, mush

shopping strategy

Other than midnight, I suspect that, for non followers, this evening whilst "Strictly Come Dancing" is on television is an ideal time to visit M&S for Christmas Shopping.

C'mon Alesha.

alesha's lofi lipstick and agent x'd

Technorati Tags: rashbre, alesha, lipstick, come+dancing, strictly, misteeq, , bruce, forsythe, agentx, rumours, heat, film, movie, ballroom, latin, cloverfield,

gas

I stopped for some F-yu-ooo-el yesterday and overheard a rather intriguing conversation in the filling station. It went along the lines:

"How many boxes?"
"Six thousand I think"
"Already?"
"Yeah, I know, but I think they got a deal on them"
"What - and they say 'easter' on them?
"Yep"
"We'll have to store them in the car wash".

cue an xmas tune

yule

I started today pretty early with a multi national conference meeting and call at about 0800 and then a morning of what I call 'hurdles' which is lots of short meetings one after another. There was one 'water jump' when one of the hurdle meetings was cancelled about five minutes before the start and thet gave me a few moments to recover my pace. The other amusing thing today was that everyone had thoughtfully provided breakfasts with their meetings, so the first one at 08:00 has bacon-filled baps with brown sauce, the next one had a trolley of fruit and pastries and then the third meeting (it was nine o'clock' by this time) has a combination of rolls, pastries, fruit, juices as well as the usual coffees and teas. To be honest I refrained from all of these options because at lunch time I had a team Christmas Lunch at a posh tudor building.

I was getting peckish by 12:00 and we set off in convoys of one sort or another to the venue where we had a champagne reception followed by a glorious lunch for our fairly diverse gang of people. Lots of talk, and even a short out break of carols, before we started to drift away in the late afternoon. I had one more meeting with Italy, but was able to do this as a conference call on my way home, so pleasingly, for me, the Holiday starts...

Here.

So

"Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas" and any other variants according to your nature and custom.

rashbre

office party time

nuff said.