Christ almighty:

what a trial.

It was Jez's birthday yesterday, so I wandered down to the Star Bar to meet up with him and a few of the usual suspects for a quiet few pre-weekend birthday drinks.

Fast forward to 1 am. Jez, despite being only barely able to stand, is dancing on the uplit dancefloor of a bizarre little subterranean club called Garibaldi's. His (married) mate Bertie, immortalised in one of a series of increasingly unhinged notes I found on my phone today as "bertie rocks", is jocularly attempting to insinute himself into a group of dressed-up girls on a night out, dancing in inimitable rugby player style. I'm mostly trying to avoid sliding off the table I'm sitting on.

Jez and Bertie contrive to disappear from under my nose. I sit down at a table of people who have no idea who I am, and chuckle inanely to myself as I send a text message to Jez, which I later find out contains the exclamation "holy god!", presumably in reference to my stunned awe at the speed of the evening's descent.

I go home and fall into a very, very deep sleep.

I'm woken up at 11:30 am by my phone ringing. I feel like death. "So, are you coming to work today?"
"Work? You mean it's not Saturday?"

A bit of failed holiday negotiation later and it transpires that our esteemed clients have a last-minute request that only I can deal with. I stand in the shower for nigh on half an hour, buoyed up on the fumes of the alcohol I'm sweating and get a bus in. The festival traffic is terrible, and the bus sits idling for most of the journey. The problem is that the engine's idle speed matches exactly the resonant frequency of the bus, and I'm mercilessly vibrated all the way here, which is where I still am at 8:15 on a Friday night.

Arse.