Party On

The loudest sound in the world is that of the Space Shuttle lifting off. Or the meteorite that killed the dinosaurs hitting the earth 65 million years ago. Or a snowflake falling on the top of Mount Everest, where the air is thin. Despite searching the web for several minutes I have been unable to find an accurate answer to this question.

It doesn't matter anyway, because the new loudest sound in the world was our office party, which occured last night in a secluded spot somewhere off London's fashionable Leicester Square. It was a place with actual bouncers outside, and a list, which your name had to be on, in order to be able to come in. And a velvet rope, and everything. Amazing.

It was actually surprising that I found my way there at all. I set out with no idea where I was going, other than that it was "somewhere near Picadilly Circus" or Shaftesbury Avenue. I walked past the theatre where the new Monty Python musical is on, and walked a bit more, temporarily wandered into WC2 (which meant I was going the wrong way), found myself in Dean street, and before I knew it I was... back where I'd started from. And not on purpose, either.

I briefly toyed with the idea of just going home again, preferring the idea of curling up in bed with a hot cup of cocoa and listening to the shipping forecast on Radio 4. But before I could do that, I bumped into someone else from the office and they actually knew where they were going, which is more than I did.

Parties are just not my thing. I do not "do" parties and for many years did a pretty good job of avoiding them at just about any opportunity. But in recent years, I've grown to tolerate parties, not for the drinking and dancing and derring-do, because I do not "do" any of those things either, but because sometimes it's actually just quite nice to get a chance to talk to people outside work.

As open plan and laid-back as our office is, it's somehow not really right to just go wandering about chatting to people. After all, they're probably busy, and it would be wrong to interrupt. But at least at a party, it's nice to get a chance to mingle, and talk. I spoke to lots of people, some of whom I recognised and an awful lot more who I didn't, but they seemed to know who I was, and that was quite nice really. Several nice ladies talked to me, and that was quite nice too.

Thestrangest thing is that as well as the people, sometimes our company do-dos are often accompanied by rather good music. For the early part of the evening, the music was provided by a 'DJ' who seemed to be doing little more than playing tracks off his Apple laptop. It was not until later that a member of our party broke out the vinyl and took to the wheels of steel, flipping and mixing and scratching and generally making what shall hereinafter forever be referred to as "The loudest sound in the world."

For someone so young (younger than me, anyway, which automatically makes him about 17 in my perception) he seemed to be playing an awful lot of old records. Queen, James Brown.. and that band that Norman Cook used to be in after The Housemartins. I should have asked if he had any Breakdance records.

Sadly I couldn't stay too long because I had to get a train home. And as it turns out, the taxi driver on the way home was listening to Radio 4, so as I sat gazing out of the window looking at the bright lights of my home town drawing closer, the sight was accompanied by the sound of that strange tune they always play before the shipping forecast comes on. Eventually I got home, and went to bed, deafeaned, my ears still ringing from the entertainment of two hours earlier.

There was hardly anyone in the office today. Those that were helpfully put all their digital camera pictures of the evening onto the network drive, and luckily there were no sign of any photos with me in them. And so, as parties go, it was quite alright. I'm invited to another one on Tuesday. I think I might actually go to that one too.