Sunday, February 22, 2009

Brit bashing

Yesterday I bought a dress that cost more than my entire wardrobe. I finally chose my wedding dress. They really are incredible contraptions. I was corsetted to within an inch of my life and even my boobs had their own little bits of scaffolding to give them 'lift' (dress fitter speak for 'honey, you're starting to sag'). But the result was simply astonishing.

I could have done with all of the above on Wednesday when I had a bit of a showbiz treat - a night at the Brit awards with a rather fabulous friend. I was bemoaning the fact that my entire team was going on a work trip that I couldn't attend because I can't do my job without Internet access. I was feeling very left out and depressed and bitched to Fab Friend about it over several large glasses of pinot noir. 'why don't you come to the Brits with me instead then?' he offered gallantly... And suddenly the work trip was a lot less bothersome.

What a party. FF and I gossiped through the awards themselves, obviously, but the performances were spectacular. I guess there's nothing like performing in front of your peers and paymasters to encourage you to pull out all the stops.

We laughed heartily at all the z list hangers on lurking near our table (former atomic kittens, the obligatory forgotten soap actresses et al) but by far my favourite was Lee Ryan, once of Blue fame (eh?) mincing around in a wet-look suit jacket and Cuban heels that I swear were bigger than my own killer stilletos. Quality. I spent far too long trying to get a discreet picture of them but I'm ashamed to report that I failed miserably. So much for all that multimedia training that work inflicts on me on an almost daily basis (or so it seems).

The aftershow was fairground themed, complete with dodgems, wrestling ring, fortune tellers and a rather pointless maze which we rather pointlessly wandered around at 3am before deciding that it really was time to make a move. I persuaded Fab Friend to crash at mine, only for the cab driver to get completely lost and admit it was only his second week in the job. Somehow, through my champagne haze, I managed to get him back on course but the fare by this time was huge so he asked me to pay whatever it usually costs.

Thus for the first and only time in my life I got a black London taxi in the wee hours of Thursday morning for the princely sum of £10. How I got away with that I'll never know.

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