Rudolph the red-nosed drunk office worker: the British at Chrimbo

Szczęsny played pretty well for Arsenal against Man U this week,stopping a couple in the second half.  The goal he conceded was a freak deflection came off a defender’s foot and was bounced in off the chest of Ji-Sung Park so not much he could have done about it. I hope he becomes a regular!

Tonight we have my language school’s Christmas Party. I capitalise this event here because in the UK it seems to take the form of a bacchanalian period of at least two weeks in the run up to Christmas Eve when every single office, company and group of mates decide to collectively ‘hit the sauce.’

It usually begins with a sub standard meal of some kind from a set menu rushed out by the kitchen and served by harassed waiters and waitresses who themselves are planning their boozing later than evening whilst simultaneously recovering from the night before’s excess.  This period of manic caterwauling is followed up by an even more intensive drinking period from Christmas Day to New Year’s Day which is then followed by a huge spike in gym memberships as people resolve to never drop another drink.... or was it drink another drop?

So in the run up to Christmas I would have had my work office party, a closer group of workmates party, a friends party, friends of friends, friends of brothers,  a university mates party, old office mates party, then I probably would have crashed a few other booze-ups taking place in the course of general revelry. It’s exhausting stuff.

You can always tell a Christmas office party: there’s continually at least one woman being led out tired and emotional, and several dad like types enjoying the one period of the year when they are allowed off the leash. Someone, always, will make a tit out of themselves. It’s a statistical certainty, to avoid this I present to you Paddy’s golden Christmas Party rule:

At a Christmas Party, after five pints, if you haven’t worked out who the embarrassingly-drunk-one will be by the 7^th pint, then it will be you.

When I asked some of my Polish students about this festive fecundity they seemed bemused by the idea and mentioned they might meet up with friends. But certainly wouldn’t go drinking with workmates. This supports a theory I have about the essential drinking differences between the British and the Polish. The Poles (with exceptions of course) tend to drink more at home and meeting friends actually does mean meeting friends. The British tend to drink more openly, as befits a nature with a proud history of the Public House. Alcohol therefore takes a more visible and dangerous turn when it gets out of hand. Semantically, British people will ask each other “shall we go get pissed?” or “shall we go out on the razzle?” whereas a Pole will say, “shall we meet up?”.

When I got drunk at home with my Polish father-in-law last month, we only ended up at 2 in the morning demonstrating drunken martial arts moves on each other, topless, singing folk songs....harmless! (Such is the effect of a litre bottle of Rasputin Vodka bought on an Air Turkey flight on a man who knows how to use nun chuks) Tony Blair, that is the continental drinking culture you wished us Brits to emulate  in action!

It’s also for this reason that the round system seems to be unknown in the Poles I have drunk with, meaning that merry-go-round effect of everyone having at least one extra pint waiting in the wings is avoided.

I’ve tried to avoid mentioning the weather on PzU but as it’s taken another cold turn, with night temperatures dropping to -15, it might be about time. Although my liver is certainly taking less of a bashing this year as a result of not being in the Christmas Party season, it’s difficult not to drink after stumbling through the snow with frozen lips and nose. The thought of a warming shot of cherry vodka is all that gets you there.

So tonight’s work Christmas party – my only one before returning to the UK next week – will be a useful sociological experiment in confirming this supposition. I will therefore need to drink as much of the free booze as I possibly can to retain a comparative vantage point on proceedings. I don’t think that’ll be too much of a problem! Slainte!