It is deeply fashionable, at least in PR, to stage your office Christmas party in January, not only harnessing that sense of post-festive irony but also, as Karoline (with a K) says, "because it's cheaper, darling". 

Hence this Monday saw the entire agency not "on a training awayday" as we told the clients, but on the early Albanianair flight to Tirana (£26 return and as many Norman Wisdom films as you can stand).

Several hours of drinking strange Eastern European spirits later (initially to take away the taste of the wine) everything got a bit blurry. Fortunately the Institute of Public Relations has a service ('FlakPluk') to help spring its members from foreign jails, so Miranda should be back with us next week. (The policeman should be out of hospital by then too.)

We need our M here to complete the promised 'one-to-one briefing' with Big Hands Lansley prior to The Grocer's 'Food Could Kill You' debate. There's a key client in the hydrogenated fats business that needs to get a positive message across and our 'We Love Lipids' advertorials can only do so much.

We get back home to the news that Quorn has been sold once again. Clearly our 'rubbery lumps for fungus lovers' campaign failed to hit the spot, and now some VC mugs are going to have a go with the brand. A bit late to suggest a Quorn haggis for Burns Night, but this could be one of the few products that doesn't taste worse when rendered in mycoprotein.

I couldn't face the "wee dram, girlie?" (more like a half pint actually, shaky-hands) that Dour Jimmy, our well-refreshed security man, proffered in celebration of the terrible Scots poet. Now I'm alarmed that I may be going off drinking, so it's clearly time for an intensive Krug retox!

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