What's going on?

If you were dining on the second floor of the Imperial China restaurant, Soho, London on Thursday evening you may have heard someone delivering a truely awful rendition of Marvin Gaye's 1980s classic "Sexual Healing". Okay, I have a confession to make. Yes, it was me singing and I hereby make a full and unreserved public apology.

In mitigation, let me give you the background.

Thursday afternoon was Garlik's Awayday. We try to have an awayday once a quarter, workload permitting. We all clear off to do some fun stuff as a team to let our hair down (or whatever the equivalent is if as in my case the hair no longer has the capacity to go down). It's great for team building. Even in a small team working in a single, open plan office it is still important to create space and time for people to get to know each other.

So the order of the day was

Pub

Ten Pin Bowling

Pub

Chinese meal with Karaoke

Pub

Unless you were me, in which case it was

Meeting with Government official discussing the future of the identity assurance market

Ten Pin Bowling

Conference call with investment banker in Boston discussing an interesting opportunity to accelerate growth in the US market

Chinese meal with Karaoke

Bunch of late night emails

Oh, well. C'est la vie.

The bowling was good fun. I scored a commendable 127 on my second match and looked to be heading for highest score when one of the lads pipped me at the post with 128, getting an extra vital pin off his last ball of the evening. Hey, I don't understand it. Whatever happened to letting the Boss win? Idi Amin, the ex-Ugandan dictator, never lost a basketball match or a swimming race. Why am I subject to this ignominy?

Then on to the restaurant. This is where it all went wrong. I had a game plan. Retain a Boss-like aloofness. Smile and play along but don't get involved in the singing . I don't drink so there was no danger of getting tipsy. All I had to do was sit tight. But oh no. I just couldn't hold out. Found myself miming along to the Spice Girls. Dropped a bit of Black Eyed Peas. Screamed at the top of my voice whilst doing the one-armed-steering-wheel movements to Rolling Rolling Rolling Rolling. And then some joker puts Marvin Gaye on and I grab the mike and start crooning "when I get this feeling, I need sexual healing".

AAARRGGGGGHHHHHHHH........