It's quiet round here today. The reason? Everyone's gone to the annual Beer Festival.
"Are you coming, Matt?" asked Ant the other day.
"No," I said, "I didn't book the time off."
That is true in the same way that I didn't make it to work before sunrise because I was still asleep.
The Beer Festival is a bit like a religious event for some people. My estimable colleagues have all gone together to spend a whole day's annual leave... with each other. I'd believe it to be sweet if I had reason to think that they all genuinely liked each other. When asked why though, the answer is always the same: because... beer. Ho ho ho. All hail the beer, do not question the beer, but worship the beer, for never will beer leave you nor forsake you. In fact, yesterday, someone was wearing a t-shirt that actually said: Beer - not just a breakfast drink.
Except it will forsake you, won't it - tomorrow morning. It will leave you with a sore head and fuzzy memories of talking ever-less-cautiously about work (the only thing you have in common) for a day in the sunshine with people you can't entirely trust. And if you drink enough of it for long enough, that delicious amber liquid will steal your life away from you from under your nose.
It's not for me, the Beer Festival.
I should point out at this juncture, that this is my opinion, and I am a man who has chosen to work instead of enjoy a drink with friends on a sunny Spring day. It might well be that the festival is much more fun than I'm making out and that the general camaraderie of the thing is off-the-scale euphoric, as people tell me many festivals actually are.
If so, that's great! And if you genuinely do like tasting different beers, then knock yourself out! But hey, I saw pictures from last year and I'm telling you, it looked like my colleagues were being propositioned by hostile Morris Dancers round a trestle table.
I doubt a vat-load of beer could prepare me for that.
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