Can I offer sir a canape?

25 September - Very slow start to the morning with a couple of irritations including having to ride up and down the horrific Foveaux St a couple of times due to the incompentency of one of the clients. A bit of news came in over the network - apparently Richie (very nice chappie who happens to be getting married next week in Mauritius - hence the stag night on Sat) had his bike stolen from outside 232 Sussex - admittedly, he hadn’t locked it all which in my mind is a bit silly - if I can’t see it I lock it although admittedly am forced to freelock it far more often than i'd like. The APB was issued but it was far too late for anythingto be done about it - almost certainly the culprits would have escaped underground via the trains and the next time we see the blue and white Avanti we'll probably see it being ridden by a German tourist. The afternoon got reasonably better - was very surprised at my total at the end of the day, ususally I get a disappointing number that seems completely unrelated to the exhaustion I feel at the end of the day but today was actually pretty good. Maybe my expectations have just been given a pessimistic reality check but it wa a fine number nonetheless.
In the afternoon young Mr Templeman gave me a call, asking me (begging me??? Doubtful) if I could do him a solid and help out at a function at the AB that night. only plans were to head to gordon and pick up mum's car (and obviously see me mammy as well of course) and that could esasily be delayed and I thought it could only be a bit of a laugh to try it out. Good clothes still located over at gordon (that is if one doesn’t consider bke jerseys to be 'good' clothes) so had a bit of a struggle to put together the appropriate attire, most importantly the shoes. Well, i'd always wanted to know what it was like to live the life of Robbie Cucvara so I thought i'd try walking a mile at his shoes (and at the end of it, I was a mile away and I had his shoes). Peter (AB owner) and James seemed very grateful for my presence (almost too grateful) but that was more than made up for by the surliness of Tony the duty manager - for the night's function, a 21st birthday for a ... 21 year old local(ish) lad my task was to hand out canapes and do general dogsbody duties. Most excellent canapes I must say - peking (Beijing?) duck pancakes, meditteranean meatballs, salmon puffs, mini sang choi bau (which I didn’t get to try), coconut prawns, tandoori chickken, curry puffs and bruschetta. All washed down with a couple of grand's worth of grog. Most of the guests were pretty nice - very strange being on the obsequious side of the serving industry for the first time in about 9 years - felt a bit unsettling trying to push food on people while they were in the middle of D&M conversations but it was all eaten so they were obviously not too bothered by the interruptions. Suffered through some very boring speeches but the actual partygoers had the benefit of being drunk so they may have enjoyed them. Also, at the end of the night there was a horrific car crash on bridge/glebe roads (almost certainly caused by a high speed police chase) but apparently nobody was killed - always gives me a chill these days. Peter had insisted that the kitchen cook me somethingfor dinner (the canapes pretty much took the edge off my gargantuan appetite) but I did take the ab's specialty omelette home - it may well have been the best omelette i've ever eaten but unfortuantelyely the fact that it was cold took away from some of the glory - pork, chicken prawns, onions and mushrooms all bundled up in six eggs, ... Have to try a fresh one methinks. Fun night but the late shift made for a very longday and even just standingaround can be tiring so don't think io'll be too regular an occurrence but that's up to mr t I suppose anyway.