Ever heard of a delayed hangover? I hadn't, but I did suffer from it yesterday. I woke up feeling refreshed and fine, but things soon went downhill after I'd had my first morning cup of coffee: a sudden raging headache, an inability to regulate my body temperature and keep warm, and finally, nausea and several bouts of puking. It got so bad I had to cancel my plans for the afternoon; which was a shame really as a friend of mine was coming round to help me finish restoring my Internet access (now that I've got a shiny new laptop, I want wi-fi installed, and I couldn't get it sorted last Thursday when just restoring basic Internet access proved hard enough), so I'm still on the old desktop that I've come to really dislike over the last few months of its sitting idly in the corner reminding me what an IT-nitwit I've become. Not that I was ever much of a boffin, but I did get through a post-doc course in Information Technology at Leicester University some 15-odd years ago, and had to annually sit for the Microsoft certification exams while I worked in support at hp...I do have some knowledge of computer operation systems and software, though I try not to show it...but as with all areas of expertise, it's keeping up with it that's key, I suppose.

The other day, several of my colleagues, who know that in an earlier life I trained as an archaeologist, came to me all excited-like, wanting to know if I'd heard about the major new discovery in Egypt, that the pyramids weren't built by slave labour? I hadn't, but I was quite perplexed: whoever had seriously thought they were? With all the documentary evidence, the lists that itemise the goods the workforces on the pyramids were given in exchange for their labour, it's been clear for many decades that they were built by ordinary workers, people who could and did down tools when they weren't paid or provisioned, as happened occasionally. Luckily, there I didn't need to be up to date with my information to set my colleagues straight on a few facts of archaeological and egyptological practise. A pity computer-related science doesn't stick in my memory like those other disciplines do, or I would have been online again much sooner.

But I was telling you about my hangover, and how I got to acquire it. Friday night was the night of our annual company winter party, and it was a themed one this time. The theme, predictably, was 'winter'. We were all required to dress in silver and white, and the venue was called De Zuidpool (The South Pole), sort of a big white shack on a big frozen pond that doubled as an ice rink. There was a DJ and a cover band, a laser show on the ice, and plenty of food and drink...and a free bar. Not just wine, beer, and soft drinks, but spirits as well. And that last must have been my downfall: they had Bombay Sapphire gin, which love_by_137 introduced me to in Belfast a couple of years ago. They also had fake ice cubes with flickering blue lights in them - they looked so pretty in my g&t-s! I've just emptied my bag of them; I've brought home 10.

Though I can only remember downing 6 in the course of the evening, and being able to walk, not weave, my way over to the cabs the company had hired in order to deliver all us party-goers safely to our respective doors. So perhaps it wasn't the drink, but the scallops that gave me a bad reaction the day after? They didn't seem or taste off to me...