Festive Fun

Went to the annual Intel marketing Christmas party last week. Held as always as Sudbury House Hotel, Faringdon, and a severe case of deja vu walking in and seeing the same Christmas tree, the same table laid out with glasses, and so on. It may have even been the same turkey - very hard to tell with that tough old bird!

We had a Ladeez Table and certainly made the most noise, particularly with our rendition of "and a partridge in a pear tree" which far outshone the other tables, who'd gone mute at the prospect of singing (that's engineers for you).

We Ladeez didn't do too well with the quiz though. The questions were quite hard, not so much about celebrities or shoes, or even how many transistors on a processor, but far too many about the EU and golf.

Despite being exhorted not to cheat, mobile phones were soon flashing around the room, querying Google or phoning a friend. How else would Rick's table have scored 39 out of 40? Not that the Internet is always very reliable. Our Internet-supplied answer to the question "which leader coined the phrase 'Iron Curtain' was Goebbels, which we didn't think was right, and it wasn't (the correct answer was Churchill).

Anyway, we still ended up with 50% of the prize, one of two bottles of Champagne, thanks to Peggy's extraordinary skill at liberating bottles from tables.

Ladeez Awards
1) Mario Testino award for Photography: Kirsty Hammond
2) Best face when blowing up a balloon: Laura Conger
3) "Got to pick a pocket or two" award: Peggy Van Nieuwenhove
4) Most generous boss award: Rick
5) Booby prize for first to bed.....the author...zzzz

Anyway, it was a great night and wonderful to see some of our friends who recently left.