"Start as you mean to go on,"

I thought last night, "get up early for a change". Looks like the vein in which I shall be continuing involves snoozing my alarm for an hour and three-quarters amid increasingly troubling dreams about Daleks.

On Thursday night I went to a pub quiz organised by my work's Social Committee. I was part of the committee's first incarnation, and o! they were halcyon days. We had money, stupid ideas and a total lack of management oversight. We organised wine tasting sessions, booze-fuelled barbeques, the Christmas party, and - our crowning achievement - a day of paintball. It all came crashing down after one of my esteemed colleagues copped three paintballs to the head and wound up with concussion. Ah well: you win some, you lose some. The Social Committee-as-Untouchables situation evaporated fairly soon after that...the old guard were blown to the four corners of the company and the new, user-friendly committee have just started out.

<fx: wipes tear from eye, reminisces about shooting workmates>

Anyway, back to Thursday. We lost the quiz by a point and proceeded to get giddily drunk. I met up with the usual suspects in the Phoenix afterwards, bringing my work lot along in tow and bumping into - for the second time in as many weeks - an ex-girlfriend that lives in the area. There's nothing like meeting a happily relationship-enabled ex to drive home how absolutely single I am. Actually, I say 'nothing like', but in fact I lie: making a minor spectacle of myself saying a rather too heartfelt goodbye to Devon's friend Emily came fairly close.

Oh, and I lost my wallet.*

Jeff and Josh had organised a meal for Friday evening, and I invited Kate along as my not-date. It was a good meal (in the Atlas Restaurant), followed by some abysmal pool playing and finally a descent to the pit of Bertie's. Again. This time there was A) thankfully no dancing, and B) no...er...other stuff.

I made the (admittedly difficult) decision to take Saturday off from alcohol after a ridiculously tanked-up week. I got my heinous mini-mullet seen to and had a pleasant wander over Calton Hill and through the lower reaches of the old town. All very civilised. I had planned Sunday to be pretty much in the same mould, but fate (and Jeff, drunkenly inviting a load of visiting foreign people to the flat on Sunday evening) had other ideas. I managed to get a bit of bass practise in before we were deluged with assorted visitors from France, Luxembourg and Germany. For a change, I was wheeled out not to play the bagpipes but to let everyone else have a go.

Josh cooked us some pasta at about 12.30 am, we watched some episodes of Spaced, and I went to bed.

* Of course, I found it in my jacket the next night after having cancelled all of the cards in it.