The venue. There really wasn't enough space in the Match Bar to comfortably mingle, causing everyone to either bottleneck uncomfortably in the middle of one long section, or else to get stuck 'round tables in The Bridge area (that's what they call it), where there wasn't really enough room to mix it up. As a result, it seemed that there was a lot of sticking with people you already knew instead of really mixing it up.

The cocktails. And here I'm going to get pedantic again, so if you don't care about well-made cocktails, just skip this bit. Firstly, their Bellini is too sweet, needing a bit more cava to cut the sickliness of the fruit (and, to be extremely pedantic, the "strawberry Bellini" they gave me is more correctly called a Rossini). Secondly, they claim that their American cocktail advisor invented the Bramble cocktail, when in fact it is a very English invention using very English ingredients. The Match Bar version is tangy and refreshing, but with too much lemon juice it's not as accurate as it should have been. (Sorry to get pedantic again, but if you're going to lay claim to the credit you could at least get the bloody thing right!)

The people. Although I was mostly catching up with people I already knew, I did meet some nice new people. Unfortunately, I was a bit too spaced to remember who they all were (should have eaten something). If you're reading this, say hi!

The pants. Why? I mean, srsly, why? Nope.

The goodie bags. More to the point, the fact that I don't want any of this stuff and now I don't know what to do with it! Not because I'm a prude, but because I already have the stuff I need (I'm not stupid), and this looks like it's just going to end up getting chucked. Makes you wonder just how much landfill is taken up by unwanted sex accoutrements, eh?

The bloke dressed as a ringmaster. Again, why? We still don't know. Or who he was. Anyone have any ideas?

Hmmm… Looks like I had a lot to say, after all.

It was off to the wilds of Soho for LUXmas on Saturday night, which I think was rather fun, but I probably should have eaten something before drinking so much red wine, as I only remember drunkenly rambling at various people. I'm not sure if they were actively backing away and making excuses, but I wouldn't have blamed them if they had been, as I suspect I was mostly talking bollocks. The previous four nights had taken their toll and ravaged my senses somewhat.

Don't just take my word for it, Frazer Irving was apparently so stricken by his hangover on the morning after the Phonogram party that he was compelled to draw this picture on Saturday as a warning to others:

"What red wine does to a man's eloquence" – Frazer Irving 2008

Except it was too late for me, as I'd already had three or four buckets of wine by then. (I did ask for a small glass, only to be told, rather snottily, "we only do large glasses.")

There was some other fun stuff up on the walls. I especially liked Sally-Anne Hickman's glittery sexy cupcake, Cherry Bakewell, and the real-time sketch done in the bar, of someone sketching people in the bar, which can be seen on the left here.

It was a pretty good ending to a pretty good week. I was glad to have Sunday off, though. Of course, right now I'm off to Twinterval so the party season ain't over yet!

And then it was Friday, and I was late for Tuttle, but Lloyd said it was the best excuse he'd heard (so that's all right), and I got to experience what is fast becoming one of my favourite weekly rituals, a really good natter about random shit over coffee with my mate Guy (who has minimal web presence despite doing lots of web stuff). We had a great conversation about the way language has been changing, and other such things, and then I wandered off to a nice lunch at Mildred's with Annie, where we gossiped about boys and talked about all our friends who've had babies this year (it was eleven of them at the last count. Still time for a twelfth between now and January, though).

After that, I wandered to Leicester Square to see the funfair, where I gazed at the pretty lights and bad airbrush art. I have a real weakness for bad funfair art, and cannot resist taking photos of any I see. The worse it is, the better! I probably have enough for a whole book's worth of photos on my hard drive. (Hmmm… That's not a bad idea, actually.) I also popped over to Covent Garden to take a look at the Spinvox wishing well, which is really lovely. It's everything good interactive art should be: funny, touching, thought-provoking and pretty to look at. Go take a look!

I spent Friday evening in Leon, in the delightful company of some old-school LFMU Flickrites, which was very pleasant. It was a rather low-key affair, which suited me well after the debauched shenanigans of the night before (maybe "debauched" is too strong a word. No, maybe not). After dinner, we unwisely moved onto The Refinery, a rather horrid bar at the other corner of the BlueFin, where I had a very poor gin martini, despite Kevo's efforts to ensure it was a good one.

There were several bad points against them: firstly, the fact that Kevo had to walk the bartender through every step of mixing the drink (which is, sadly, not unheard of even in better bars). But in this case, it seemed to be because the bartender didn't have a clue what a martini even was, and kept mispronouncing the name. That's pretty shocking, especially for a busy central London bar. Even with Kevo holding the bartender's hand, and all but mixing the drink himself, it wasn't very good (though not for lack of effort on Kevo's part, for which I thank him). Not only was it shaken — something you should never do with a good gin martini — but it was poorly shaken to boot, with slivers of ice resting on the surface of the drink, which was tasteless at the top of the glass, and undrinkable at the bottom of it. They even had to fetch an olive from the kitchen, which is why it's sitting on the giant wooden skewer, instead of a small wooden toothpick.

But take a closer look at the picture, and see why I definitely won't be going back to The Refinery any time soon. Here, let me make it easier for you. Did you spot it? Or more precisely, them? Not one, but three chips in the rim of the glass. Somehow, I managed to miss them and was drinking from the unchipped side of the glass. What you don't see, because it doesn't show up in the photo, is that under the small chip on the left, there was also a lipstick stain. As you might imagine, I stopped drinking when I discovered that. I'd suspected I wasn't going to like The Refinery the moment I walked past its huge goldfish windows and saw the braying hordes of liquored-up business suits, but I didn't expect such an appalling drink. Ironically, their own website lists among their selling points "innovative cocktails", "staff that are there to make your experience one you will never forget" and "more importantly, The Refinery is about getting what you want from a bar." Sure it is, if what you want from a bar is poor service, uncomfortable seating, cramped tables and dirty glasses. Never again. Avoid avoid avoid.

Still, the company was lovely and it was great to catch up!

OM NOM NOM. Verily, it was good. Not too sweet like the one at the LUC birthday bash, which made me feel a bit sick. (photo by moleitau under a CC licence)

And there was a discussion of superhero movies (especially comparisons of The Hulks, which I couldn't add to, not having seen the Norton one, and still repressing all memory of the Ang Lee one), and a really great conversation about chasing muses (which I mostly don't remember, except that it was great), and there was a really welcome cup of tea in a tiny kitchen, and there was a night bus right at the stop when I got there, and it took so little time to get home that I almost missed my stop, and it was indeed a grand time.

And the first issue of the new Phonogram series is pretty sweet, especially the full colour, which looks bloomin' ace. The back-up story drawn by Marc Ellerby (whose lovely girlfriend made the lovely cake mentioned above) is pretty sweet too. Well done, chaps!

Us Now is not a perfect film, and it runs the danger of preaching to the already-converted and those in-the-know. Pundits are sometimes captioned with job titles or company names that have no context unless you already know who they are (which is a hell of an assumption to make of your audience), so that there's no explanation as to why they should be a particular authority over anyone else, and captions often don't linger on the screen long enough to read them, anyway. The narrative voice can be confusing; voiceovers are sometimes made with certain authority, but with no indication as to whose authority it is (which was particularly noticeable during the Conservative Party section, for some reason). And, obviously, the film doesn't cover everything. Each of the examples used in the film could easily warrant its own individual documentary, a fact which director Ivo Gormley readily acknowledges.

However, it's got a positive outlook and is eager to look to the future, to see what wonderful things might happen next, something that most of the people taking part in the post-screening Q&A session were not. It was unfortunate that the overwhelmingly positive message of the film was completely negated by the nay-sayers who dominated the Q&A, moaning about all the things that the film wasn't about, instead of appreciating it for the small celebration it is. The essential message of the film is that there are tools (blogging, forums, social networks etc.) which are easily available and can empower you to make change yourself; you don't have to wait for someone else to get the ball rolling for you. The people who complained about all the things missing from the film were themselves missing the point: instead of sitting in a cinema enjoying (or not enjoying) a film screening that someone else had generously provided for free, and then moaning about it, they could use those same tools to get their own agenda heard in the communities which support it, and do something creative and positive instead of complaining that no one else has done it for them. But what can you expect from people who insist on spending all their time only focussing on everything that is wrong with the world, instead of reaching for the celebratory once in a while?

On Tuesday night I went to the Webby Night at the ICA, which was quite fun. The nice Webbies people provided us with free booze, though I also recall drinking rounds of hot rum and lemon, and eating stolen gingerbread cookies (NB. I did not do the stealing).

Due to finding out about the event so much at the last minute that it was already in progress, I managed to miss most of the presentations, including the two by people I actually knew. I expect they all would have paled into insignificance next to the revelation that the nice fellow I met at the Moo summer party, the one who said I looked familiar but neither of us could work out where from, was in fact right, but we'd met way back at a time that neither of us had actually considered. It was half a lifetime ago, in a different city; I was at a party where I didn't know anyone and a nice boy cheered me up by telling me about his newest favourite band. Who could have predicted he'd have ended up running a successful internet start-up with one of my pals from London's old school blogerati? Isn't the internet brilliant?

According to the post-it note I found on my bedside table on Wednesday morning, which I had obviously written before I poured myself into bed the night before, I may also have agreed to buy Matt a gorilla suit ("bonobo stylee"):

But neither of us can remember why he wanted a gorilla suit in the first place. (The Bagpuss postcard on the table relates to the post on Oliver Postgate and Rowland Emett that I haven't got around to writing yet, and at this point probably won't do until the new year…)