FANCY DRESS

Well Friday's Engineering Curry Night turned out to be alright in the end. I did wonder what was about to happen, when someone started pulling out fancy-dress costumes from a rucksack. However it was all in good humour. I got away with wearing a pac-man rain mac while Captain America dressed up one of the students as Princess Leia.

You know sometimes I wonder whether people really grow up or whether it's all a game of masks and costumes. Alcohol doesn't always turn nice quiet people into over-exuberant loudmouthed idiots - sometimes it simply removes our home-made, respectable adulthood costume, until all that's left is the child who's been pretending to be a grown-up all along. There are all sorts of layers of irony in that thought.

I foolishly had a Magners, forgetting that it smells like cat pee. Why does anybody drink it? I switched to Pepsi by the time the naans came round.

"Good luck, Matt," said Steve, shaking my hand. "Keep the flag flying for docs."

"I will," I said. He ambled off for his train while I thought about life as the only technical author for a while. No more table-football for a start.

I got home and collapsed into bed, listening to my stomach digesting lamb korahi and a peshwari naan. Leaves blustered about outside like rain, and the world blinked out with the flick of my bedside lamp.

-

The next day I was watching fields, buildings, farms and houses flash past the crowded buffet car of the 10:02 to Paddington. Sunlight gleamed from the tracks and a fine blue sky framed the flickering world behind Slough, Hayes & Harlington, Ladbroke Grove and Royal Oak.

I was meeting one of my oldest friends, which is always a bit of a highlight. Although this time, she carried some unhappy news with her. It seems she's separating from her husband - or rather he is separating from her - the mess is so thick and murky that it's hard to tell even what the best outcome would be. We talked about that a lot, wandering along the Serpentine watching the rollerbladers. It's a shame when you love two people so very much, and they somehow wind up locked in a spiral of hatred and hurt.

Still, London was looking fantastic. Hyde Park was alive with kids kicking through the leaves, and squirrels darting through the trees. Even the neck-breaking city skyscrapers were catching the sun in a way that made them sparkle like jewellery. I nearly got run over a few times, trying to cross the road. That's the thing about London I think: from the hot wind in the subway to the Victorian facades above the shops, the higher up you are, the nicer it is.

It was dark by the time I got home. The rail replacement coach jolted to a stop outside the station and I clambered off, clutching my phone and a wrapped-up chocolate brownie. I thought about my friend, struggling to make sense of a new beginning in the face of ruined relationships. I thought about Steve, leaving one thing behind and creating a new impression for his new team. I thought about my other colleagues, dressed up as superheroes, cartoon characters and bananas on a night out, pretending to be something they're not by revealing who they really are. I thought about me, forgetting that I don't like Magners and then drinking it anyway, despite knowing that alcohol keeps me awake at night.

I reckon it's best if we're all just honest about who we are sometimes, underneath all this fancy dress.