Antipodean antics

So, we have all somehow once more survived December, with its plethora of lunches and evening drinks to celebrate Christmas with clients, colleagues, friends and family. I informed my husband at the beginning of the month that it would be faster to tell him when I would be home, rather than when I was on a night out. For some reason he appeared to find that far less amusing than I.

Shortly before the festive season kicked off, I went to the Insurance Institute of Manchester's annual dinner in November, where over 750 people congregated for an evening of dinner, speeches, charity fundraising and music. My firm hosts tables every year, and I have attended previously. Never before was it, however, quite like this.

The institute's current president is a gentlemen named Barry Thompson who runs a local insurance consultancy with his brother. Being something of a character, Mr Thompson brought his top table guests out to the 'Rocky' theme tune. Rather than sit on a stage at the far end of the cavernous room, as is tradition, they were seated on a small raised stage in the centre which was adorned with a giant plastic palm tree. The gathered guests were informed that this represented Barry Island (a real place in Wales' Vale of Glamorgan for anyone who wasn't aware).

All-round superstar

Mr Thompson introduced his two sons to the gathered throng very proudly, making them stand up to identify themselves. The first had flown in from abroad to share his father's special evening. He was introduced as a model and general all-round superstar. After that astronomical build up the second son, who was still standing, was introduced as simply "the runt". Poor love.

After an impassioned and effective plea to raise funds for Manchester's famous Christie Hospital, the evening segued into music and dancing. It was about as far from a stuffy black tie dinner as one can imagine.

A fortnight later, my team went out to a teppenyaki restaurant locally for its Christmas do. Party tricks involved the chefs throwing raw eggs and catching them in their hats, and setting fire to the cooking area to spectacular effect. They then flipped potatoes into the mouths of the seated dinner guests, much to everyone's amusement.

Extremely well built

When it came to my turn to attempt catching, the attention of my colleagues somewhat waned. I initially thought that was because I was the last person at the table to attempt this feat. I soon realised that, in fact, a number of extremely
well built, young and fit-looking men were filing behind my
chair to sit at the next table.
They eventually filled two large
tables, and attracted a great deal of attention.

They were obviously a team of rugby players, and it quickly became apparent that they were not only professionals, but also representatives of their country. A whisper went around our table that it was the New Zealand League team, which made perfect sense as they were playing Australia at Old Trafford that weekend.

There was a birthday at our table, and as it turned out at theirs also. Our birthday girl made her way to the central chef's area of their table to have a photograph taken, and shortly afterwards my entire team (well, the girls) had muscled into a photo which was instantly splurged across Facebook with brags about our close encounter with these NZ heroes.

You can imagine, then, the humiliation when on Saturday afternoon the Facebook messages began to flow in from friends who had compared our photo to the faces of the players who were on the television, and discovered that we had in fact been dining next to the Australian rugby league team. Fortunately, none of us had made a country specific reference and I thus believe that our error flew under the radar. That is until now.

PS Happy New Year!