The first surprising thing about Monaco is that it is built on an incredibly steep slope. From the marina you can see right to the edge of the city simply because everything is built on top of each other. This was to prove a challenge to the ladies on our second evening there because we were required to get dressed up in black tie and that requires high heels. We tackled this problem in a pragmatic manner and carried spare pairs of shoes instead of handbags.
All eight international teams assembled in the yacht club de
Monaco. Our boys had disrupted the seating plan so as to have as many Dutch girls
on our team table as possible. The rest of us played a minor role in match
making and the more we drank the more ambitious we got. We started with simple actions like suggesting that all the
ladies moved 2 seats to their right before pudding (thereby ensuring that the
right people were sat next to each other). Then when free wine had been liberally served to everyone present, the pudding arrived and
turned out to be a variation on fruit salad, some people weren’t interested in
eating it and so the game of passing a 2-inch slice of banana around the table
from mouth to mouth was instigated. You might think, as I did, that this would
never catch on, but the initiator of the game was sat right next to the wannabe
couple and so uptake was alarmingly strong. By the time 3 people had done it no
one else had an excuse not to join in. Watching people with a banana poking out
of their mouth seemed funny but we did get it round the circle without any
compromising incidents. No sooner had I breathed a sigh of relief then, to my
horror, our instigator picket up a floppy bit of mango and declared a new
round. Would the Dutch girl go for it? Why yes she would. The wannabe couple
found it very easy to do this but everyone else had more in the way of personal
space issues. By the time the mango got half way round to me, my stomach muscles
were exhausted from laughing at them all in their awkward efforts to transfer
the mango from one to another. My moment in the spotlight came of course. I
found it a moderately sobering one. I was faced with a grinning Dutchman, with
a beard and a piece of limp mango dangling from his teeth at significantly
closer proximity than you’d ever expect to see such a sight. There’s really nothing
to be done but to dart in and get the metaphorical hot potato moving on as fast
as possible.
After the meal and a few other formalities, the evening’s
entertainment was announced: Karaoke. This was something that no one felt inebriated
enough to do, which is funny considering they felt ready to pass a mango around
between them. It did eventually get off the ground though in rather a spectacular fashion as the Dutch girls were coaxed onto the floor, seated comfortably on chairs and then made distinctly uncomfortable when the British boys, clutching microphones (and lunging wildly), energetically serenaded with 'you've lost that loving feeling' in an admirable recreation of that famous Top Gun scene. Unfortunately I'm not sure the girls got the reference.
When the party ended, no one wanted to go home (I think it’s
because a night never feels complete until there’s been dancing. Singing doesn't
count) and for that reason I’ll have to put together one final post to explain
how it all ended.
#ClareInMonaco
#ClareInMonaco
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