My Christmas party 2010



Ronnie Wood

 Okay, that was different. Maybe this years Christmas party was slightly less normal than most.


For one thing, I’m pretty sure we didn’t have a full on fire last year, that wound up being put out by Rolling Stone’s Ronnie Wood.

I’ve checked through my deepest memories and cannot remember there being a drag act last year either.

This year things were a little different.

This year we were in Soho.

My work’s Christmas party was held at Madame Jo Jo’s in deepest darkest Soho, here in old London town. This venue is everything that you might expect a place in this location with a name like Madame Jo Jo’s to be, which is a little bit seedy but fun. Depending on what night you are there it can be either a burlesque club or a Transvestite’s club. Take your pick.

It was a somewhat unusual choice for a Telecoms company – let’s face it. We arrived and found the small door way, which was surrounded by gay bars and porn emporiums, blocked by the widest bouncer in the world (and also possibly the oldest). He was already besieged by a huddle of engineers all manfully proving how straight they were by ‘joking’ amusingly about the clientele of the neighbouring clubs, and desperately trying to get inside Madame Jo Jo’s as fast as possible in case they accidentally caught gayism while waiting.

The next thing we saw was a Ronnie Wood look a like who apparently was very much in charge. It was clear he either manages or owns the place by the way he walked about.

The beers flowed, the mood relaxed.

And then there was a fire.

A proper one.

The smoke was billowing from the toilets so we headed up the stairs and back out into the streets. The last thing I saw as I headed out was Ronnie headed for the toilets carrying an extinguisher.

A few minutes later we were back in, the situation under control and Ronnie was mopping the toilet floor, slightly dancing. It was kind of surreal.

A few minutes later, Lady Ga Ga came in.

I told you it was surreal.

This Lady had balls though – I’ll give her that!

When ‘she’ sang I was impressed, the voice was pretty good and indeed the look was striking. There is something about seeing a seven foot burly and frankly quite butch looking “by day he is a builder but at night she is…” man in six inch heels, stockings and Basque that frankly defies description. His voice was pretty good and I wished that he would have just done more singing. I could have quite enjoyed his act if he had just spent all his time mincing about in his ahem sexy costumes and belting out songs – but he didn’t.

Sadly he was joined by two of the least convincing women I have ever seen, and then they basically just – how can I put this – were gay.



At least they had dresses on at this point...



I’m not sure being gay is really a stage act is it? Surely you have to do more than that don’t you?

For all I know these guys might well be straight – who knows? It is just a job they were doing after all, and I don’t think being gay is compulsory. Indeed that may have been the problem. Maybe that was the problem right there, they had confused being a drag act with being what they think gay people are. So they simply got on stage in women’s underwear and wigs, put on some Kylie and mimed. That’s what real gays do isn’t it? I’m no expert but I think it must be.

It was a bit of a shame they did that, because they didn’t dance, they just swanned about and mimed badly to bad tunes. Really though, is that entertainment? If they had at least danced while miming I’d have been happy, but even that was too much to ask.

Let the lady sing more I say, and ditch the backing troupe.

The night wore on, and I did a lot of dancing because lager told me that I would be good at it. Lager was wrong of course, but then it so often is. However this year I refrained from doing the Caterpillar or taking my clothes off, and as far as I know I didn’t offend anyone so I call that a success.



Me before the lager told me to go and dance.



After a long and cold wait for a night bus (no this is not the movies, we did not walk out of the club and instantly hail a passing ‘London Taxi’ with a smiling chirpy Cockney driving it. This never actually happens – ever. The night bus was as fun as night busses always are, and eventually I found my way to my hotel room. I don’t want to brag but it was after 3 in the morning when I got to bed – I’m still young people – of yeah.



Okay so it’s about ten years since I last stayed out drinking that late and may well be the last time ever – but I don’t see how that is relevant – I’m not 40 yet, and I managed to stay out past midnight!

 
Ronnie photo from

http://www.clashmusic.com/news/ronnie-wood-buys-hendrix-guitar

All other images courtessy of Darren Bell Photography - www.darren-bell.co.uk

Transvestites care of Madame Jo Jo's http://www.madamejojos.com/