Ho ho ho

Alphabet and close friends decamped to Bintan for this year's Christmas party, and although there was a distinct absence of turkey and fat hairy old men dressed in red, I think we got into the swing of things (see pics).

We had planned to have paintball, go-karting and a guitar-led singalong (courtesy of John and J2's girlfriend), but the rain put paid to the first two - and elephant-crippling amounts of alcohol put paid to the latter.

Happily we did manage to play a bit of ping-pong, and play some laserquest. Interestingly Jianggan revealed himself to be the supreme hunter of men, rushing off into the dark and stalking opponents. In the second game I was involved in, it was our very own little Kelly who turned out to be the ace sniper.

Of course in the absence of turkey and stuffing we still gorged ourselves silly on Chinese seafood at the kelong restaurant, and drank/spilt some pretty passable Aussie red wine. All this and I managed to deliver a dignified peroration on what Alphabet has achieved in 2007, and what it meant to have us all together, better halves included. Doubtless it is circulating on YouTube somewhere - but the gist is that we now have a stronger, happier team than we've ever had before, and this allows us to do great things in 2008 for our customers - whether industry vendors, or end-users - and therefore ourselves.

After my pearls of wisdom had been delivered, and sensing that the bread rolls were about to be thrown, we buggered off to the hotel disco for more foolish behaviour. Thank God Christmas is only once a year!