Date: 29 November

Location: Couch. Post nap.

Guys, I think I have a little tiny crush.

Let me take you back 24 hours to Friday night. I’d been to see the ‘Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier’ at the National Gallery (worth your pennies) and scoffed some Empress of China dumplings with my visiting mother. She’d decided the night was over but I had a different perspective. I found The Twin and friends halfway through a bottle of prosecco at the Supper Club, a highly Melbournian and highly pretentious drinking coze at the top end of town, all officious French waiters with English so terrible asking for anything is a tortuous and humiliating affair, overstuffed Chesterfields and flickery candlelight. It’s lovely but we soon deiced to move on to a venue at which our prolific drinking habits would be more economically sustainable.

The Twin suggested Loop, a new rooftop bar. I’d heard it was good, it was close and The Twin’s brother highly reccomended it. In fact, he was there right now with a group of friends. You can see where this is going, can’t you?

In fact I’d briefly met the brother almost exactly a year ago when I’d been a tag along to his 30th, the result of a command from him to his sisters (twin girls, remember) to ‘fix the sperm to egg ratio’. Despite this demonstration of his alarmingly flimsy grasp on reproductive biology, I liked him immediately. Not conventionally good looking, he has that smooth, nutty Eastern European colouring and bold profile that make his looks compelling. He has charm in spades. And ingenuity. Not only does he run an incredibly successful IT start up with his longtime best friend and housemate (hence, I think we shall call him ‘Mr Forbes’), but the theme he’d chosen for his 30th was brilliant: Dress As Your Favourite Cocktail. We thought we’d been clever in our furry Black Russian ensembles but others had well and truly outclassed us. There was the Sex On The Beach guy with his mussed up sandy hair, inside out boardies and lei with condoms, there was the Scotch On The Rocks in his kilt and red wig who had a set of stones in his pocket that he’d whip out and stand on when required, there was the Fluffy Duck in a onesie, the multiple Cowboys (with varying levels of raunch) and several men in ties labelled ‘mine’, dressed as Mai Tais. The birthday boy himself was in a sombrero with a fake bomb strapped to his chest, a tasteless but hilarious Tequila Suicide.

Loop turned out to be a great choice, a new and relaxed roof top bar with almost a backpacker feel, but backpackers who liked to be able to choose their brand of gin. Our group, now doubled in size, claimed two big tables. I was squished in next to Forbes. He was, it seemed, quite drunk, but then so was I so our sense of humour seemed to meet on some weird giddy level. He suggested a game of shoot, shag, marry — pick 3 strangers in sight and the other person has to decide which of the 3 he’d shoot, which he’d shag and which he’d marry — which soon got weird when someone across the table hilariously misheard us and the game changed to ‘shoot, shag, marry, eat’. Lots of gin was drunk. More games were played. Everything was funny. Forbes charmed. One of the boys, his arm in a cast from a bike accident, lost his ‘scratching chopstick’ down the cast and watching the boys take turns trying to extricate it had us in stitches.

One in the morning rolled around quickly and we tripped down the stairs and scattered in various directions to our respective homes. However, not before Forbes suggested that he host New Years Eve at his place. You can imagine how I feel about that (hint: it rhymes with schmexcited).

This will need to be discussed with The Panel tomorrow at Sunday drinks. More on The Panel tomorrow. For now, it’s time to go pick out a French wine that goes with melted cheese (what doesn’t go with melted cheese – am I right?) as the Frenchies are hosting a raclette.

Love

Alex

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