Its my birthday, and I'll get boozed up if I want too - and I did!

Rich kindly arranged a thursday night beer session in honour of me reaching the age of 30. As he suggests in his blog, no one ever has a birthday on a tuesday, so the nearest available Thursday (in true & typical IBM style) - so the plans were made and set. So after ironing my new Ted Baker shirt, and downing my action slacks, we made our way to The Lounge - where my colleagues and friends were waiting. Rich promised he wouldnt stitch me up, however, a little shamming around on my own account, left me paranoid for about 3 days. He mentioned a couple of weeks ago (quite innocently) if I liked popcorn (he had a brand new popcorn maker up at Chesterfield which he was gonna give me). Of course, I took this to mean, prank - aka, get home and my flat is wedged tight of popcorn, or some busty & leggy lass walks in - wearing nothing but popcorn nipples - mmmm popcorn nipples.

Needless to say, I was paranoid and thus starting a running joke, where I would recieve text messages asking if I liked popcorn from colleagues and friends. Funny you may think, but the last thing you need is to get stressed about nothing, which it turns out - nothing happened, nothing was planned - so thanks Rich for sorting my Birthday Bash out.

Anyhoo, after many drinks were consumed, it was down to two choices - Rios or the Well for cheap drinks - the latter was selected and we drank spritely til around 2am - maybe longer - I cant quite remember. Monsuir Bellis was his typical self - aka getting boozed up very quickly on strong beer, talking to complete strangers, trying to tap up unavailable women and getting lost from the rest of the group. Captain Rich was having his usual drink fuelled night, yet providing amusement for the rest of the group in his typical style. The good old Doctor David Kelly (not the weapons inspector, but the student who abused MSN in our team for 12 months) turned up, then forgot about last buses, so I let him kip on my sofa. Sadly, his flatmate, the lovely Helen, didnt attend and was omitted from staying at my gaff.

I learnt a very strong and valuable lesson today - although I got so blind drink, I cant remember it.