Tue 1st January, 2008 We spent New Year's Eve in Dalston. Keith suggested that we have a quiet meal at The Shanghai, a Chinese restaurant just near the station – low key, maybe six or seven people; but by 6pm such was the flurry of last minute texts and phone calls from various people looking for something to do that the booking had swelled to an unwieldy 21. Jenny and I were the first to arrive, and I said for the first time in my life "Hello, we've booked a table for 21." We were guided to the largest table they had, a round one, which they'd managed to squeeze 15 chairs around. 15 people were now looking at eating their dinner with their thighs touching the thighs of the person next to them – slightly awkward if you've only just met for the first time – while the six people arriving last would be sitting behind them on stools, or something, reaching over shoulders with hyper-extended chopsticks to get to their food. And the thing about round tables is that they neither extend their circumference outwards to accomodate more people, nor tessellate very well. Two round tables were pushed together in a highly unsatisfying arrangement which increased the number of possible place settings by one. Fortunately only 16 turned up.

There were a sprinkling of Scritti Politti-related folk, and a load of people Jenny and I didn't know, and she got things off to a cracking start by saying to a pregnant lady "Good evening, and welcome to our ectopic pregnancy table formation." I didn't know what an ectopic pregnancy was, but I strongly suggest that anyone feeling a bit fragile today should refrain from doing a Google image search for it. Jesus.

Anyway, the meal went fine, and the potential nightmare of splitting the bill was actually the easiest settling up I've ever done, and that includes various instances of eating out alone. Bill: £290. Tip: £30. Total: £320. 16 people – £20 each. Within 30 seconds I had 16 twenty-pound notes in my hand. Unbelievable. We went to the pub to celebrate.

On the way home we were treated to the spectacle of a young woman berating another young woman for daring to kiss her boyfriend openly on the tube. "Excuse me, could you stop that," she said. Quite rightly, she was told to bog off by pretty much everyone. This was too much for the woman, who started to well up. "What's your problem?" she was asked. "If you must know," she wailed, "my fiancé has just left me." A carriage full of repressed English people shuffled and stared at the floor, swaying slightly in their drunkenness.