Last night was my work Christmas party, at a Cuban themed bar called Floridita in Soho. A pretty nice venue all in all. I had a handful of mojito’s and a beer or two, but my current unbeatable cold seemed to stop me from getting anything other than tired and bloated, but I still enjoyed myself… until I came to leave.

I was collecting my bag when I got wind of a commotion outside, so hurriedly took my coat and bag and went to see what was going on. Outside I found the security staff with one of my colleagues in a sleeper hold. I couldn’t see which colleague through the mass of bouncers, but I could see he was quite drunk but fairly passive and clearly bleeding. The Security staff seemed to be being unnecessarily aggressive, even towards me whom wasn’t drunk and was just trying to calm the situation to understand what was going on.

Turns out it was one of my very close colleagues, whom is generally a very passive and laid back individual, of a slim build and unthreatening demeanour, so it really made no sense that they were going to such extreme lengths and they weren’t calmly trying to pacify the situation. They seemed to be aggressively trying to control the situation, even forcefully ejecting subsequent leavers from the party in an angry fashion.

I managed to calm my colleague down, whom was very confused, and had only become agitated when he was injured by the bouncers - an understandable response in my eyes. All this commotion had made me very late and I now only had one last train home which I couldn’t miss. So after I was content that it had calmed down and people were moving off home, I set out at a brisk walking pace towards the nearest main street and hailed a black cab, which was driven a really nice bloke who really put his foot down (thankfully). I then briskly trotted up to the platform and just got on my train before it left. The train even had a toilet which I desperately needed, so it looked like I was in the clear.

That was until I went to get my MP3 player out of my bag. It wasn’t there. Oh dear. I checked all the pockets (all zipped closed including the one which was supposed to contain my beloved iAudio X5L)… no dice. Then I realised there were other items missing. I put my earphones in a separate pocket to protect them better, they were also gone. Another pocket was completely empty, but I can’t for the life of me remember what I had in there. I’m sure it will hit me next time I realise I need the thing that was in there.

So far I’ve called the bar to ask if they have seen it, and if not to report a theft from their cloak room. If that’s the case, I’ll be calling the police too. I know you pretty much do everything at your own risk these days, but it still sucks none the less, and those events really put a downer on my evening. Thankfully Emma was still up writing Christmas cards at 3am, so I got to rant out my frustration before going to bed - I probably would have stewed all night otherwise.