So Here it is, Merry Christmas..

The legendary GMG Radio Christmas Party was this weekend in Manchester. Things started out so well.
We had a comedy drive up as it was myself, Tree and her bezzie mate Ben in the car, speeding up to Manchester in the worst rain ever. We had a quick stop on the M5 services for a pizza and were plunged into darkness. They lost all power and had to close all of the shops. I am sure that they actually should have legally closed the building, from what I remember as my time working Front of House. Not that I would have budged until I had eaten my food. However, because of this, the shop was no longer open for me to purchase a beverage for remainder of journey, so by the time I got to Manchester I had a throat like the Sahara desert. First garage I saw, I pulled in to grab a quick diet coke with cherry. As I opened the car to climb back in, a dirty great lorry did 50 mph through a very very very large puddle .... moving the puddle from the road to my back and car. It soaked me. It soaked my dash board and car seat. It left so much water that it was running around the footwell and dashboard for the rest of the trip (about 45 mins) despite full heat on full blast. Absolutely one of my pet hates is wearing wet clothes. I had water dripping from my hair, down my back ... and ergo down my arse crack. Quite uncharacteristically, I was laughing a lot. I think it was shock.
So we get to Manchester, find the hotel really easily and then spend ages trying to navigate one way systems to get in the car park.
My room was beautiful. There was a cool iPod dock thing - not that I have an iPod, but I was really impressed anyway. The TV was a flat screen jobbie and the speakers were in the ceiling around the entire suite! There's nothing that says I am going for a big night out like laying in the bath listening to Family Fortunes, I can tell you.

I then popped out to meet young Anthony who runs Sarah-Jane dot tv and Torchwood dot tv. And he is an even cooler bloke in real life than on the web! One of those rare straight boys who is genuinely straight but gets the gay thing .. and can dress himself. And he gave me a lovely Christmas card with a very sweet message .... I was choked!
Anyhoo, back to the party. There had been a huge fuss about the start time for the party moving forward an hour .... we had to be ready at 5.30 to get on the shuttle coach, as the party had to start bang on 6.00pm. So we are all squished into the hotel lounge (like all 800 odd of us) with two people working the bar that had a queue 15 deep, roasting my nuts off in my rather fabulous velour cow print suit with velour zebra print coat and zebra print 5 inch platform shoes. 90 mins later, we finally got in. I have to be fair and say that on paper .. the party was amazing. We had Ray Quinn (gurning like a loon through two songs, and looking like a leprechaun more and more with each note), two actors from Corrie (which I don't watch and had no idea and cared even less who they were), Gabrielle (fabulous! Love her! But they didn't let her sing, she just gave an award out), McFly (yawn), Billy Ocean (neutral feelings here, even though he I did wonder why none of his people had taken the mop off his head when he clearly mistakenly walked into a broom cupboard rather than the stage door. Apparently it was his dreads but they looked a bit odd white). And finally Westlife (Id rather eat glass). So when they did finally start bringing the food around 9.30, I was less than impressed as it had been hyped out of reach by teasing about these amazing guests. They were amazing, it just so happened I didn't like any of them. So before we even got to pudding, I left and went back to my room to change. I don't think it had helped that I was on a table so far out and behind a pillar, it genuinely felt like we weren't part of the party. And the nearest other Wales table was three tables in, the other side of said pillar.
There was an amazing comedy moment with the security on the way in. One of them had a full on The Bodyguard earpiece sleeve mic combo, to which I asked her if she was going to 'do a Madonna' later to a very blank look from all of them. Which is when I realised that they all had them so I blurted out 'Sorry, clearly you're doing Steps' to even more blank looks.
Another one was in my haste to leave the room rather than suffer .. I mean listen to Westlife killing 'Home', I burst through the main exit, to find I was out by a door and had just thrown the kitchen doors open and knocked out several chefs, who had been peering through the gap, at Westlife. I apologised, thanked them for the lovely meal that was imminent and then got the correct door. I then had one of the sales reps from our Scotland station be very rude to me. So I called him a cunt, told him never to talk to me again and he stropped off.
Oh, and to top it all off, we won station of the year, which means we have to bloody well host next year and I was so sure we wouldn't, I promised to wear Welsh national costume if it ever happened.
After getting back to the hotel, Ben and I left Tree to go to bed as she was mullered on Tequila, and we went up Canal Street. Sadly, it wasn't as great as we hoped, so we walked it twice and went home.
So there I was, at 11.30, tucked up in bed on the phone to Dan who had had a great night as he had had one of his casuals over - literally!
Oh well.

At least I am mostly sorted for Christmas now.