20:09:19 Andy, me and Masako, forced to eat standing up (which Andy was particularly displeased about) because of a woefully inadequate provision of seating.
20:10:38 Andy pointed out this would be a good picture to send to peopleandballons.com. I think this was some sort of reference to Dave Gorman's Googlewhack thingy but I'm not overly sure.
22:03:54 I'm really diappointed at how this picture came out so inexplicably blurred. Perhaps my camera focused on a fly, or a floating particle of dust, somewhere between me and the intended subjects.
22:05:06 Me and Masato, and an interesting survey of the ceiling.
22:05:28 When Chie checked the previous picture on the camera it was horribly washed out, so she retook it. Interestingly if you look at the previous one (not using the camera) it didn't actually turn out that bad at all.
22:16:21 A large part of the evening (particularly for Andy here) was consumed with the large Scalextric track they had set up. This was surprisingly fun, although I couldn't help but feel bad that there were seemingly two guys employed to put your car back on the tracks when it came off. Still, that pang of upper class guilt didn't stop me enjoying a good few laps of the circuit.
22:21:32 Chie was keen to have a go as well - I think it was her first time.
22:33:47 I was simply in awe of the fact that we were having a party in the same building as Carry On Films Ltd, and not to mention Precision Cargo Services Ltd.
22:43:13 I think I was trying for a Thunderbirds style camera angle here, which would make all these models look real, and make the people in the background look like giants. It didn't really work.
22:43:18 ...and this was also too dark.
22:43:50 There's something profoundly bizarre about playing Scalextric whilst wearing a suit.
22:44:02 Noriesan was keen to have a go as well.
22:44:12 ...err same picture again. Chie may have been trying to squeeze me in, but doesn't seem to have done a very good job. Or maybe she was trying to get me out of the shot, in which case she did rather well.
22:44:51 Me and Andy displaying the sorts of vacant facial expressions that you only really get when playing Scalextric whilst wearing a suit.
22:52:51 I was attempt to take a shot of the gaming area from the sort of mezzanine / balcony bit, but didn't quite manage it first time round, due to the flash being obscured by the banister. I pondered for a while if having the flash reflect off a nearby brass coloured object might be an interesting new photographic technique, but given that the result is complete crap I doubt I'll be having tea with David Bailey just yet.
22:53:11 ...now that's a bit better.
23:07:57 After a period of subtle observation of what other people were doing, we decided to give roulette a go. For a while (about 15 or 20 minutes) this was surprisingly entertaining, but towards the end the appeal seemed to wear off, and we ended up exiting the game in the standard brash fashion, by blowing all of our chips on zero.
23:45:34 I think we'd got beyond the trivialities of game playing now, and were now at the engaging in polite conversation stage.
23:59:00 Not the greatest picture of me and Chie ever... but equally not the worst!
00:10:24 Masato, Chie and Junko.
00:34:40 I'm rather pleased with the facial expressions here, it could almost look staged (in fact it probably was).
00:34:47 When this picture was proposed, I suddenly became very confused about composition, and determined I would have to bend down to fit in for some reason. Hmmm.