ATMOSPHERE

Okay, there is definitely an atmosphere here today. I'd forgotten that it's always like this on the morning after the Christmas Party.

While I doubt that it's ever been the wild morality fling people assume office Christmas parties to be, I am starting to wonder whether more goes on at these things than ever sees the light of day.

I've never stuck around to find out.

In previous years, I've taken a keyboard in and Peter and I have played carols between pudding and coffee. I said I wouldn't do it this time. I wanted to enjoy it, I said, without having to lug a keyboard back to the office while they all wobble off to the after-party-pub.

In the end I had to catch a train at 4pm, so I was unable to watch my colleagues slide from merry to hammered, as undoubtedly they did en-route to the Oakford.

And now I have arrived to an atmosphere. I asked my manager a cheery question and he mumbled his reply, locked his computer and darted off to talk to someone else. There are others too, giving me sheepish looks in the kitchen, and there's a general hush... just like last year... when it later emerged that someone's wife had turned up and had almost got into a slog with a member of staff for flirting with her husband. Messy.

What's interesting to me is that this morning, those who stayed out partying are either sick, hungover or just-about here and munching through cold bacon rolls, and those who didn't are in a relatively good mood... in a terrible atmosphere.

I'm determined to carry my own atmosphere today though, rather than kowtow to the prevailing winds. Well, why not? Hey, if I couldn't go out and 'enjoy myself in a noisy pub with inebriated santa-hats with baubles clipped to their beards...' then I'm not going to also mirror them by being miserable this morning.

There's a certain irony there.