Our finest hour?

There have been a lot of (legal) highs at Alphabet - but I think last Thursday must rank amongst the greatest achievements of the lads and lasses, even greater than our dominance of Symantec's pub trivia quiz.

At Hill & Knowlton's annual media party (this year's theme was 'Moroccan') the editorial team - Jianggan, Amelia, Alice and myself - with a special guest star appearance from Asian Security Review's Kelly, swept all before us.

Hardcore fans of the blog may recall my sorrow last year when a perfumed ponce from SPH prevented us from winning the beer sculling competition at the corresponding 2007 event. Happily this year Jianggan and I weren't carrying any dead wood, and we gobbled, guzzled, and dribbled our way to glory, with a little help from our friends. Notwithstanding almost drowning in Heineken, I consider myself well pleased - particularly with Jianggan who almost singlehandedly brought us back on level terms when we got off to a poor start in the final round. At least my dear old Mum can see that her boy's expensive education wasn't entirely wasted.






























As the medics were pumping my lungs free of Dutch beer, Kelly proceeded to wiggle it, just a little bit, and dance her way to a resounding victory in the bellydancing competition. From the photos I don't think she has much of a belly, so clearly there's room for improvement for next year - but it was a glorious second victory for Alphabet media.




















But there was more to come.

No sooner had I freed up my airways to order a couple of glasses of bubbley, then the night's Master of Ceremonies, Raoul Le Blond, announced the winners of the fancy dress competition: Kelly and myself! As you must be beginning to appreciate, I have a pretty competitive streak, and so earlier that evening we'd all gone round to our local fancy dress shop and splurged on exotic costumes. The fact that people thought I was a shepherd from a Nativity play was not enough to deny me a second stab at glory - though as you can see from the photos, there wasn't anything to split me and Jianggan, or Kelly from Amelia and Alice.















Just when I thought it couldn't get any better Jianggan promptly won a mobile phone, at which point adrenaline, Heineken and champers combined to force me back to the divan where the Alphabet gang were hunched over their kebabs and fingerfood.

Now that I don't attend so many PR events it was nice to catch up with some of the nice boys and girls from HK (Fenix, won't forget your name again, promise). There was a pretty healthy crowd, and it's got to be said that HK does tend to throw the best parties. Sadly I didn't bump into many vendors; I'd have thought that HK would have benefited by creating a platform for both sides to socialise. Maybe next year.

All in all, a pretty good night. Though I may be avoiding the Heinekens for a while.