Have a swinging Christmas

Posted by Helen Whitaker at 20:17 on 9 Dec 2009

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I started getting into the festive spirit this week. It takes a bit longer than back home because with blue skies and sunshine (sorry) it doesn't feel very Christmassy in Los Angeles. But after a hellish day's shopping with Christmas hits searing into my brain I thought, 'ah now I feel Christmassy'. So last night me and the boyfriend went to a pre-Christmas drinks meet-up with some of his paparazzi friends in downtown LA.

So we arrive at an English pub at around 10pm and are asked by the bouncers for ID (par for the course) and if we're here for ‘the meet and greet'. What's the meet and greet, my boyfriend asks. The bouncer mutters something we can't hear and we're waved in. Not unusual, half the time no one can understand what he's saying because of his Cockney twang. No matter, we spot our friends who are by now on their fourth or fifth drink, and appear to be boxed in at their table by an office party. There are people in Santa hats (and one man in a full Santa suit!) chatting in little groups, and they've commandeered the pool table. We squeeze past and order some drinks.

Then my friend Jo comes back from the bar with an odd look on her face. "I just heard two couples talking at the bar about whether anyone had taken their fancy. Are we sure this is an office party?"

We send another friend, Dean, to investigate. "We're at swingers meet and greet," he tells us. I'm sorry what? "The people in the Santa hats are single and available, and the rest of them are couples," he explains. What about the man in the full Santa suit? Dean just shakes his head as if there are no words to describe what he has been told.

Two minutes later, Ron Jeremy, the porn star walks in. Swear to God. I think it's pure coincidence, but at the time, all the gin joints in the all the world springs to mind. The pub's on the same street as one other restaurant and industrial estate for God's sake. The partygoers (and alright, some of the blokes from our group) queue up to have their picture taken with him.

Aside from this it all seems very civilised. No one seems outrageously drunk, and everyone is being very polite. Except us. Obviously like the modern metropolitan young people we are, we can't stop staring at them.

Then a lady wearing gloves appears at our table. The gloves vibrate. She demonstrates by touching me on the shoulder. And then each person around the table. We all sit there a bit uncomfortably with fixed grins on our face until she retreats back to her table.

Another drink later and it starts getting a bit lairy. One woman has just flashed her pants at the rest of the bar, although to be fair that's par for the course with any average office party. We look around. The vibrating gloves lady is no longer wearing the vibrating gloves. The man she's with is wearing them instead. I say both, we can only actually see one of them because the other one is under the vibrating gloves lady's dress.

In the words of a tabloid newspaper, this is when we made our excuses and left.

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