This Z/Yen seasonal event was great fun and especially memorable.
Before dinner, we went to the Tate Britain to look at the Pre-Raphaelites exhibition that was all the rage that autumn.
Naturally this was a good excuse to encourage people to dress up for dinner…
…as if the Z/Yen crowd in those days needed much excuse to dress up.
The Cinnamon Club, in the old Westminster Library, was an excellent venue. We had the whole of the upstairs mezzanine for our dinner.
I wrote a song that year specifically for the event. Rather a good one, though I say so myself, despite (or perhaps because of) the Christmas cracker joke in the first verse.
GOOD KEEN Z/YEN TRAINEES
( Sung to the tune of “Good King Wenceslas” )
ALL: Good keen Z/Yen trainees abound
Late work, no-one leavin’
Pizza boxes strewn around
Deep pan, crisp and even
ALL: On expenses came that fare
Though the bosses cruel
Through the vents came just cold air
Saving winter fuel.
ALL: “Please, please Michael up the heat,
This ought to concern ya
We can’t work with such cold feet
Or with hypothermia”
MICHAEL: “I am wearing just shirt-sleeves
Positively shvitzing!”
ALL: Thus was Michael’s firm decree
Not all that convincing.
IAN: “We need flesh and we need wine
We can’t get warm hither”
ALL: Thus did Ian else opine
Spoken with a shiver.
ALL: So the Z/Yen team set its sights
On this cozy venue
Dressed up as Pre-Raphaelites
Gorging through the menu.
There is a big stack of pictures from that year’s revelries, which you can see through this link and/or the picture link below.
