Gosh. Late post this, head still spinning. From Friday.

Went to that lock-in I told you about with Kate, the busty admin temptress from work, at The Wheatsheaf in Fitzrovia. What a place. On the outside it’s every inch the traditional coaching inn – all original black timber framing, leaden windows, and even one of those arched passageways leading to an alley at the back for horses and whatnot to clip-clop through on the way to a nice bale of hay and a carrot (although nowadays I imagine you’d be more likely to find gutter amphetamines changing hands at £15 a gram, or a chav having a piss, so steer clear if at all possible). On the inside it’s low-ceilinged, cozy and quiet, perfect for nursing a lunchtime pint of London Pride over the Sudoku without hassle and without breaking the bank. All in all a quality joint.

So anyway, Kate’s friend Stella works behind the bar, and also lives upstairs. Pretty sweet. Every second Friday night, when closing time rolls around, Stella sneaks a handful of her pals in through the cellar and up in to the main bar for an almighty cane-up. Kate invited me along last week, rather sweetly, making me the only guy there out of a group of ten.

Now I’m not going to pretend to be any kind of Cassanova. The state of my flat alone, from the kitchen sink overflowing with Bolognese-encrusted dishes to the cracked toilet bowl held together with electrical tape and my greying Manchester United duvet cover all bear witness to the fact that I seldom get to enjoy the sweet fragrant company of a lady. Now there I was, locked in a room with nine of them, all lithe, lissom and lovely, getting steadily more tanked up on Archers and lemonade, G&Ts and any number of other sweet bubbly contrivances you'd care to mention. Forced to kee pace, and maintain at least the façade of gruff, hairy-backed masculinity in front of Kate, I chose my tipple of the night, selected of course in honour of our host.

“Stella, please. Pint”.

Sup. Grimace. Drain. Repeat.

Repeat.

I’d like to say that eight pints in things began to go a touch awry. I’d even be relatively satisfied to report that it was around pint six, or even at the dregs of number five that the room started spinning and I was forced to sprint out of my chair in the direction of the bogs, arms stretched out like The Mummy and my vision blurred with hot, scrunched-eyed tears of self-loathing. But it wasn’t. With a good couple of inches of ‘wifebeater’ still at the bottom of glass number three, and the clock at the bar barely having grazed the midnight mark, I was bent double in the tiny disinfectant-smelling cubicle, hacking up great chunks of hot gassy KFC, and a Curly Wurly I found earlier that day in an old jacket I was going to throw out, all over my shoes, and a little token splatter in the lavatory.

Well thank goodness for their lax security in leaving the toilet window open enough for me to squeeze my shamed form through undetected by the girls into the London night, tip-toeing through the aforementioned arched alleyway thingumyjig in burning-cheeked seizure of pure embarrassment .

Called in sick to work today as simply can’t face Kate…. What ever am I to do???

Dan.