This was a super event; both the restaurant and the preceding gallery visit. Click here to see, on The Internet Archive, the book that accompanied the fascinating Eyes Lies & Illusions exhibition.
The People’s Palace wasn’t quite a private room, it was more a cordoned-off area, which i think detracted a little from that “private party, let your hair down” atmosphere we tended to aim for.
Not that it stopped people from enjoying themselves. It was a very popular event that year.
I think Michael provided the song that year – it’s hard to tell with his as I don’t have them date and time stamped, nor copyrighted with a specific year.
TOIL AND PLAY
(Sung to the tune of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”)
God rest ye Z/Yen par-tic-i-pants,
There’s no point in dismay
Remember Christmas parties
All end in disarray
Don’t save yourself from whiskey’s pow’r
You might as well a’stray
O tidings of bromo and fizz
Bromo and fizz
O tidings of bromo and fizz
From year to year we reappear
And wonder all the same
How business so chaotic
With such an awful name
Can still inspire Nippon songs
And ever-woeful games
O tidings of toil and play
Toil and play
O tidings of toil and play
But when to Ze-e-Yen they came
Where their dear project lay
And found us all hung-over
But still prepared to pay
We found our invoice quick and fast
And saved ’em from May-Day
O tidings of toil and pay
Toil and pay
O tidings of toil and pay