Party season! Finally, at last, after the weight and solitude of lockdown, a chance to break free and break out at parties with your colleagues, your friends, your family, in an atmosphere of festive celebration – what could go wrong? So much can go wrong. So much has always gone wrong. So much will go wrong this Christmas week, and beyond, at New Year's parties and summertime parties at the beach and in the suburbs and on the farms, where the sheep are already starting to feel mighty nervous.
Party season! We say nice things about New Zealand music, New Zealand art, New Zealand literature and all that sort of thing but the true New Zealand cultural experience is going to parties. We're a party town. The orange slices floating on the surface of the bowl of punch, the frenzied dancing on carpets, the argument over nothing on the back porch - the argument over something on the front porch is worse, and things get taken out on to the street. You don't want things taken out on to the street. That never ends well. The true New Zealand cultural experience is someone getting a hiding.
Party season! Infidelity is a disease. It clusters at parties. I remember a party at a beach house. My girlfriend lived next door. Someone had set up a dentist's chair and the game was to sit in it while a girl in a nurse's outfit administered glasses of alcohol of her choice. Her white dress was buttoned to the hem. "Your turn," I said to her, and we kissed when she was in the dentist's chair. She lived in another town and we saw each other for years. There was a lighthouse on the coast across the harbour from my girlfriend's house. It was romantic but I identified more with the shore; it was rocky, difficult to access, and covered in great clumps of seaweed, thrown out of the sea like trash.
Party season! Everyone is in search of fun. This sounds like fun: "The firm's 2015 staff party in Wellington had begun in the central city office. People donned costumes and drinks were available before party-goers headed to the wharf to board the vessel taking them to the Evans Bay venue." But the firm was Russell McVeagh. More from that news story in March: "A former Russell McVeagh partner has been accused of sexual misconduct." Yeah, that guy. News story, June 2021: "The New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal has found Mr James Desmond Gardner-Hopkins, a former Russell McVeagh Partner, guilty of misconduct on six charges. The charges related to two Christmas functions in 2015. The Tribunal found that the conduct was disgraceful or dishonourable. Five charges related to Mr Gardner-Hopkins's behaviour at the firm's Christmas party. At that party, five incidents of drunken behaviour occurred with junior staff members involving tactile dancing and other physical contact." Define "fun".
Party season! Watch yourself. Watch what you say, and watch what you drink. Watch out for the safety of others, and watch out for games people think they're playing. Watch the back porch with one eye and the front porch with the other. Watch the time. Watch the weather. Watch the sheep. Don't watch them that closely, you don't want to get ideas.