Xmas party celebrates Wodehouse
Our Christmas party this time had a P.G. Wodehouse theme, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the first Jeeves novel, The Inimitable Jeeves, in 1923. As such, I was surprised how few actual Jeeveses there were—just me and Lord Hare. Perhaps the role of being an idle consumer, waited upon hand and foot, somehow appealed more than being a tireless factotum. I can’t imagine why.
We also had three overbearing aunts, three clergymen (two of them genuine clergymen, so it wasn’t a stretch for them), two Spodes, and plenty of Bright Young Things in tweed or evening wear. As is always the case with our twice-yearly parties, it was nice to glimpse some faces we see at no other times, and to meet some long-suffering other halves who only visit us on these occasions, such as Mrs Partington-Plans, and Nathalie and Maxine, the respective partners of Francis Giordanella and Mike Reynolds, both of whom made a splendid effort on the flapper-dress front.
Our venue once again was the Tea House Theatre, run by Harry and Grace Iggulden, NSC types themselves. (Well, as Grace pointed out at the end, she’s never actually joined the NSC, despite the fact that she owes her marriage to it, having met Harry at one of our events.) The venue laid on a sumptuous buffet for us, about which everyone was complimentary.
Robert Beckwith propels a soft bap (wrapped in clingfilm, in case you were wondering) at the policeman’s helmet
Our parties always involve some silly games. This time there was an on-going competition to design a Coat of Arms for the Woosters, using a big box of felt tips that we’d brought along. There was a Knock Off the Policeman’s Helmet With a Bread Roll game: the job of being the policeman was rather forced on to Matthew Howard, who gamely stood on stage in a toy helmet while his friends threw baps at him. It was realised early on that the helmet sat pretty solidly on his head, so that even a direct hit was unlikely to dislodge it. (I guess we could have used heftier types of bread, but we were keen to avoid injury.) So Howard had the idea of turning the helmet sideways on his head, which produced a much more precarious balance, meaning a palpable hit stood a good chance of unseating it. Matthew had spent the day at another booze-up and was swaying visibly by the time he arrived, making his labours in the shooting gallery all the more noble. He even managed to avoid falling asleep during the party, which is quite an achievement for him.
Just three people managed to knock the helmet off, Floyd, Seonaid and Stephen Myhill. So it went to a shoot-out: in the first round Seonaid and Floyd were again successful, but Stephen missed. In a second round it was Seonaid who failed to dislodge the helmet, leaving the deadly accurate Floyd Toussaint as winner.
Action Man attempts to steal the cow creamer (which you can see just below the tea set)
Our third game was Steal the Cow Creamer. This is a reference to The Code of the Woosters, in which Sir Watkyn Bassett manages to acquire a silver cow creamer that is also coveted by the husband of Bertie’s Aunt Dahlia. Bertie is sent to steal it. In the book he spots the creamer in a ground floor room filled with glass-fronted cabinets, but in our game (for reasons of game-play expediency) it was in on open display in a vault with a web of laser tripwires at floor level. Bertie—as played by Action Man—was lowered on a string on the end of a pole held by the contestant. He had a hook (made from a paper clip) sellotaped to one arm and the creamer had a loop of wire, through which the hook could be hooked. However, arrayed across three sideboards in the room is a variety of precious silverware, rare china, some pewter tankards and even some gold goblets (all acquired from doll’s house suppliers). If Action Man managed to knock any of these over and they fell to the floor, then the laser tripwires would be triggered and the player disqualified.
Players had 60 seconds, but in practice no one ran out of time—most people went out by setting off the alarm. However a couple of people were successful and our winner, with the best time, was Frances Mitchell. She was delighted because, as is traditional, the prize was the components of the game itself, in this case all the doll’s house treasures—Frances does have a doll’s house, so this went down very well.
Running in the background of the event was another game: hidden somewhere on the premises was a real, full-size cow creamer and the first person to find it would win it as a prize. This person was Pandora Harrison—but she kept her discovery quiet, meaning various hapless souls were still poking into dark corners of the Tea House, unaware that their quarry had already been found!
Judging of the Coat of Arms Game was by vox pop—Scarheart held up each design and the audience’s cheering was compared. The winner from Miss Minna was a worthy recipient of the honour, though I did wonder if the fact that it was rendered in bold black lines gave it an edge, as some of the others were rather hard to discern from half a room away. You can see all the entries at the end of the album of photos.
The highlight of the evening is, of course, our famous Grand Raffle, with prizes themed to the party. In addition to Wodehouse books and DVDs (remember them?) of the Jeeves and Wooster TV series, we had such oddities as a bell to summon Jeeves, a cocktail shaker and a copy of The Savoy Cocktail Book, a pair of black shorts with matching black Sam Brown belt, and an indoor golf putting practice set.
Many thanks to all who came, for making it such a convivial occasion. You can see a full album of photos on our Flickr page. I hope to see many of you at our traditional Christmas Moot, on the last Friday before Christmas (this year the 22nd) at the Rising Sun pub on Cloth Fair, by Smithfield meat market.
The Curé has won $25,000 in gaming chips and is wondering how he will explain this to the bishop