The trouble with smokers

Friday was an experience. The boozing started just after lunch time, when I joined some chums for a quick pint in Blacks. Blacks was strangely empty which is a bit alarming. What does it say about the state of England's creative industry if no-one is getting trashed in members' clubs on Friday afternoons?

After a quiet pint in Blacks we bimbled over to the bar for the wine tasting. It went well, not terribly productive bit it was good. After a couple of hours of drinking very reasonable wines we managed to record about two whole minutes of radio show.

At this point we felt we had been so productive that we probably deserved some sort of reward and opened a bottle of champagne, and another one. Suddenly it was time to stumble on to the next event. A short tube journey later and I was in a pub in Camden.

It was the leaving party of a few people and the place was extremely busy. The Woo was vamping about and I talked nonsense with strangers, and even a few people I had met before. When the clock dragged itself around to about eight it was time to go and meet the lesbians to learn some sign language.

The pub was full of deaf people, I think it is regular meeting for them when they can all get together and chat each other up (there was a lot of that going on). It was lovely to catch up with my favourite lesbians and with in moments there was a large circle of people around us helpfully suggesting rude sign language.

It was a marvellous way to spend time. Some of the gestures are very easy to guess the meaning of and other ones are far more cunning. I was roaring with laughter as someone would do a gesture and then with my limited understanding of sign language and a bit of miming I'd try and work out what I'd just been shown.

It was brilliant fun and I were were all roaring with laughter so I decided to reward my helpers with some drinks and my coat was gone. My coat with my wallet in, I had put it on a chair right next to me so I could take notes and now it had disappeared.

As you can imagine this rather ruined the evening, After some furious searching we asked to talk to the manager to see if we could see who stole it and I went outside to cancel all my cards. I realised as well that my Zune was in my coat, you can't get them in England so that was a shame.

Having cancelled everything I could think of, I went back in the bar and tried to do a bit more research but it was no-where near as much fun. About an hour passed and the magically my coat reappeared.

A friend of a friend had borrowed it to wear while having a fag. This friend remarked that 'it was a bit weird that it had a wallet in it' and that I shouldn't be upset with her friend because it was just one of her ways. At the time I was so delighted just to have my stuff back that I didn't get upset but now I'm a bit miffed.

All my cards are cancelled, and there is no chance new ones will reappear in time and so I'll be travelling to Spain without the safety net of a credit or debit card. It's going to make the whole experience a bit of a pain and all because a silly girl didn't think to ask before borrowing a coat for an hour.