I woke up feeling a bit crap after last night's 'blackout', and I have the work Annual
Dinner tonight – a bit like a Christmas do, except it's not called Christmas. My bosses, Mohan and John are attending too: they arrived yesterday from the UK,
but their luggage didn’t (well, Mohan’s). Whoops.
I spend most of the day in the gym trying to feel better and to lose 5kg from the alcohol last night and food last week at the training course. I manage to sweat about 4lbs (probably vodka), which was pretty tough when you don't feel 100%, and then get myself ready for the party
tonight: I am looking forward to it, surprisingly, and I wear a variety of outfits during the day, trying to see which one hides my stomach the best: I settle for a slimming black shirt and trousers, which sort of reflects the mood I am in by the time the actual time
comes to head off. I could actually do with just going to bed…
The theme this year is "Glitz And Gold" (note I am wearing neither glittery or gold visibly, but I do tell people I am wearing gold underpants): I must admit that everyone looked pretty smart: a total contrast to last year's fancy dress theme. However, like last year's fancy dressed theme, I
don’t recognise some of the team at all with makeup and smart clothes!
We take our seats and then the lights go down and there is this rather cringy spectacular VIP
entrance thing, where the management team walk in amongst the attendees
cheering and clapping, and I sink
into my chair. I am then told that I have to move from the seat I am in to the
VIP table – fair enough - it would have been embarrassing for the guests of honour to be seated on their own!
The food is OK – a buffet thing which has, weirdly,
shepherd’s pie as one of the dishes - not very Malaysian! Remembering my waistline I don’t eat that much: I am much more
interested in getting as much wine down me as I can. The compare was 'enthusiatic' – in fact, far too enthusiastic for his own
good and after dinner, there were games to be played on stage – another fearful
event that I somehow managed to avoid being pulled onto the stage for – the
first was a replication of the scene from Titanic, on the ship’s helm, which
was funny. Another game involved 4 men being shaved by blindfolded women. By the time the forth game was getting geared up for I made my
exit to the toilet, narrowly missing slipping in a pile of puke. Phew, I had managed to avoid getting up on
stage and making a tit of myself.
There were these awards for the best-dressed person and when one of the more shy girls was picked, one of the team asked me who chose the finalists and I could see
his mind whirring away. Maybe he was miffed at not being chosen himself, but
to be honest, I am not surprised seeing he was wearing the most horrific shirt. The finalists had to do a catwalk thing to the sound of “I’m
Too Sexy”, which was the pinnacle of embarrassment and the very shy girl turned pale.
All this over I relaxed and then the disco started, and
everyone buggered off – not surprisingly - and after I finished the remains of the wine, I did the same.
It was a fun evening, but I did thank Allah it was all over, as all I wanted to do was go to bed.
I meet
Adrian and Edwin tonight for food in Xin Chin Seafood Steamboat in Kota Damansara and then plan to have a few quiet beers nearby.
The first place we went to (Muzeum) had the Malaysian vs Indonesia football playing, accompanied by music from a
live band murdering Karen Carpenter. The bar next door was trying to drown
out the noise combination by playing club music loudly which made for a sonic disaster...
We grab some plastic food in The Coffee Bean at 1
Fullerton and I get a message from Josephine – a few hours late as my bloody
phone had lost and not found it’s signal. After rebooting it, loads of text and
WhatsApp messages come through. Luckily I reply in time for her not to be too
pissed off and she joins about 9 for some wine and weird deep fried fish skin snacks along the Marina
Bay area.
Several hours later I'm back in the city, and heading to the old Malay area for lunch in a café, who’s name I don’t remember but it was opposite this other
place called Glam, where I’d much rather have been, even if only for the name. 
I am heading with the management to Singapore to
meet with the team at one of the sites there to talk about some customer feedback, and I am extending my stay there to spend a weekend and catch up with Josephine, whom I haven't seen since she visited me here in KL earlier this year. 
Rather pathetically we only climb the first couple of
hills and then give up on the third one – we were all knackered and I was
sweating like a cunt, so was relieved to return to the car, the air
conditioning and then home to cook a roast lamb. 
The food is OK – a buffet thing which has, weirdly,
shepherd’s pie as one of the dishes - not very Malaysian! Remembering my waistline I don’t eat that much: I am much more
interested in getting as much wine down me as I can. The compare was 'enthusiatic' – in fact, far too enthusiastic for his own
good and after dinner, there were games to be played on stage – another fearful
event that I somehow managed to avoid being pulled onto the stage for – the
first was a replication of the scene from Titanic, on the ship’s helm, which
was funny. Another game involved 4 men being shaved by blindfolded women. By the time the forth game was getting geared up for I made my
exit to the toilet, narrowly missing slipping in a pile of puke. Phew, I had managed to avoid getting up on
stage and making a tit of myself.
I am doing an external training course this week - Service Strategy ITIL, with an exam at the end. I haven't done an exam for about 100 years...The venue is the Marriott Hotel in town and I have to be there for 8.30am. Having discussed the traffic with various people, and the best way to town in the morning, I leave the house at about 7, fearing that I’ll be stuck
in traffic and miss the beginning of the course.
I meet some friends in town this afternoon, for afternoon tea in The Loaf at the Pavilion. 
