Born in the 80s
(20 of the 21 guests in attendance at my belated birthday party last night: Glasgow, Scotland)
A special long picture post today to make up for yesterday’s shortcomings. This morning, the carnage of last night’s party was very evident. As soon as I exited my room (which aside from a pair of fake eyelashes glistening with glitter on the mirror was free of all signs of a party) I met with a powerful and newly familiar aroma. There was a distinct smell of pineapple, quietly decaying peaches, coconut, gin and beer. The source of most of this could be found in the kitchen, but the main culprit was a glass of evaporating gin and tonic I found balanced on a radiator in the hallway. Its effect was enough to make anyone think we had our own micro distillery in the flat. I was however certainly not hungover as I had been drinking moderately responsibly all evening. Thankfully, there were no other surprises awaiting me in the clean up operation, aside from the tacky kitchen floor – this morning it was stickier than a student union carpet. There still are some invisible sticky patches, even after intense cleaning – I will have to slowly catch all of them over the coming days.
The night was an uproarious success and I am proud to say I believe it was my best organised gathering yet, especially since it occurred in one room of my flat – the kitchen. The theme was ‘Nasty Nineteen Eighties Costume Cocktail Party’. Never one to do these things by half measures, I insisted that all attendees were to arrive in costume and bearing comestible offerings for the punch and cocktails. I created a ‘Club Tropicana’ sign in reference to the Wham! song of the same name in order to edge the already dated décor firmly into the decade of my birth – you can see portions of it behind us on the wall. It was inspired in part by some vintage plastic cocktail stirrers I bought whilst in Singapore. They came in three colours; coral, off white and chocolate brown, still in their original wrappers. That took care of the cocktail element. The 1980’s inspired part was in the main a result of the garment I am wearing in this picture; I bought it from a charity shop a couple of years ago and have never had the chance to wear it. That’s probably because it’s a leotard. A cheery turquoise adidas bat-winged, hot pants leotard. It is what many people might describe as ‘something else’.
Having never had the chance to sport it at any other time, I decided that if there was one day I should have license to don it, it should jolly well be on my birthday. Of course, I would have to make everyone else wear terribly badly designed and heavily co-ordinated items too, hence the idea for the party was born. I laid on cocktail snacks like mini sausages, cheese and pineapple on sticks, pickled onions, Ferrero Rocher chocolates, olives; the usual fare that I imagine parties twenty five years ago were founded on. I also managed to create a brand new drink, surely never created before – the ‘Kickapoo Moon’, part Kickapoo Joyjuice, part Coconut Bali Moon liqueur. It was fruity, sickeningly sweet and totally delicious.
Costumes that deserve a special mention might be Suzy’s; a combination of baby pink bob wig, tiger t shirt topped off with bare midriff and legwarmers. John arrived as Freddie Mercury in a white vest with a moustache he carved away from his own beard. One Anna was wearing a blue leopard print leotard and the other Anna had shoved socks in her shirt as effective makeshift shoulder pads. Graham’s fiancée, Laura had made him up with her own eyeliner as a very pretty, quite passable Adam Ant. Roisin was stoically dressed in what was essentially a mesh of sequins and Simon, although not really dressed up was making foil rings out of Ferrero Rocher wrappers so he would look more ‘gangsta’. The evening was topped off with a trip to the nearest club, our old student union haunt at the Art School. We took up half the dancefloor. It was magical. A party triumph.
– Today Rosie is going to a meeting in Stirling, Scotland –
