And then a party happened

And then a party happened.

That could almost be a tag line for Lebanon. Let me state the obvious, the Lebanese like to party. Birthdays, feast days and public holidays will provide an excuse, but it isn’t really necessary to have a reason any more persuasive than “It’s Tuesday” or even “There isn’t a reason”.

They can be pretty spontaneous, or so it seems to the casual observer. A Friday evening gathering for about twenty friends had been a little more arranged than some, but, as we were leaving at around one in the morning, our hostess addressed us with “you haven’t eaten enough, it’ll all go to waste – come again tomorrow and we’ll finish what we started!” So we did: this time until two in the morning.

Last night we were guests in a Beirut night club and supper bar - Le Grey. One of the owners felt like having a gathering of again, just over twenty people. Now I’ve been to small dinner parties where the givers spend all their time in the kitchen, opening and sampling bottles, changing CDs and attempting to orchestrate a particular mood. They don’t seem to have any time left for guests, let alone being able to enjoy it themselves, oh! perish the thought. Owning a night club takes away a number of those awful possibilities, so we all, including host and hostess, enjoyed ourselves.

Never mind anything else, it was a joy to be confronted by a TV screen with something other than twenty-two sweaty young blokes, dressed in garish colours chasing a ball about, and being chased in their turn by an older bloke. Even more of one to listen to real music instead of badly played vuvuzelas. I know, you wouldn’t think it possible to play an instrument badly that only has one note, but it is.

A video clip was showing of J. Lo doing something erotic with a well-muscled chap, they both wore a lot of oil as well. After that Beyoncé and Shakira did a rather amazing double act. Then the four tenors came on and the ladies of the party rather outdid the men with suggestive comments that brought on much giggling. A live singer did a brilliant impression of Amy Winehouse; salmon and wine and jokes and calamari and whiskey and cake came and went and everything was punctuated by dancing.

At about one in the morning, we headed back home. A bit lily-livered of us to pack it in so early? Maybe, but we’ve got a wedding to go to tonight! So another party’s happening.