Hey peeps, just back from a heavy week in Lisbon – obviously not too heavy on intellectual debate and discusion, more heavy on alcohol consumption and eyeball-popping late nights.
Very amusing final night of conference as Hawksey appeared and was invited along with the 5-6 other 'other halves' to come and join the dinner – cue starnge sensation of wandering around among work colleagues, only to come across your fiance at various stages of the evening – highly and increasingly surreal after multiple gin and tonics.
Then followed by the statutory annual trip to some dodgy nightclub – this time a Mr McGowan suggestion, hence lots of darkness, hidden steps crying out to be tripped down by consecutive mugs, a ridiculous 'you give me a black card when I come in, I spend 10 euros and then you exchange it for a gold card to get out with, three floors down' policy – hmm, like that's obvious when you're i) not Portguese and ii) not remotely sober..
Anyway – the shout went up among the UK senior team that there were – shockingly – more of the Added Value Germany team in the club than English bods, at which point it became a drunken hazy point of national pride to remain… dear god… until 4.30am, when finally Dambusters could be played and we had won this bizarre non-game!
Cue still being pissed at 9am the next morning and having to present the UK's Strat Plan for 2011 in front of the entire conference, deep deep joy. Never easy with your tongue glued firmly to the roof of your mouth and an invisible badger's arse emitting odours from it….
H and I then did manage a good 2 nights trawling Lisbon – possibly not the most exciting city but it did scrape up a style bar, an oceanarium with some beaver-lookie-likey hugging otters, a tram trip where the guide focused mostly on the pickpockets lining the streets we were cruising through, a celebrated ride in a wooden elevator to a wet rooftop (amazing what these people get off on), Hawksey having his big mitts lovingly adorned with a very nice pair of leather gloves in the tiniest shop ever and as much sardine pate as a girl can eat.
On to the next trip! Sx