If you happened to be passing through Waterloo Station at about 9am on an otherwise mundane Thursday morning a few weeks ago, you may have thought that some kind of terrible disaster was about to take place. In a sea of muted colours and busy commuters, Batman, Robin, Superwoman and other assorting world-saving types were congregated by WH Smiths, looking varying shades of horrified and embarrassed.
Er, well, that would have been us at the beginning of our annual summer party. ‘Summer’ was used fairly loosely, considering that said shenanigans took place at the beginning of October. Never mind, eh! The day began with a glitter-heavy train ride, with mustaches being drawn on left right and centre and some concerned looks from the general public. Shout out to the girl who said we looked ‘really cool’ – you’re a liar, and we love you for it.
We arrived at Thorpe Park, where we made the fairly questionable decision to make our first rollercoaster a water ride. Suitably freezing cold and miserable following a go on the wettest water ride in the park, we wrung out soggy wigs and made a mental note to never again wear cheap polyester near water again. Ever. Trust us on this one. Ugh.
What we had conveniently forgotten, was that theme parks are mainly populated by teenagers who aren’t afraid to tell you look like an idiot. Often. Which they did. Often. Luckily, it’s always been an aim of mine to be mercilessly heckled by groups of sixteen year olds bunking off school, so I was in my element. We also learned that Super Mario is definitely still relevant to popular culture; our two matching Mario’s got more attention than One Direction at an all-girls boarding school.
After a frankly exhausting day of rollercoaster based mayhem and terrible food (that is the LAST time I eat from a bucket), we headed back to London to Brazilian bar Barrio North in Angel for cocktails and charcuterie. Yum. After a hour or so of alarming the mojito-swigging population of North London, we headed across the road to the Old Queens Head for karaoke. This, like most dealchecker shindigs, descended into a enthusiastic mess of wine, glittery hats, blow up guitars and loud, shouty ‘singing’. I’ll spare you the rest of the details – they aren’t pretty.
At about 10pm, our MD Mark took to the microphone to declare that we could come in at 10am instead of our usual 9am the next morning. He exited the room (to fetch more beers, obviously) to chants of ‘Attwell, Attwell, Attwell’ – there’s truly nothing like twenty drunk people chanting something repeatedly to end a night with a bang.
