Mon Panache

My Dear Princess and Dear Fellow,

At the end of the Gerard Depardieu movie, "Cyrano de Bergerac" the main character explains that his gift to the world has been "mon panache". 

I've always liked that. Maybe it's just the way he delivered the line. But I like the idea of panache.

Consequently, I decided it would be the focal point of my Festive Fun Music Quiz at work. I've been threatening to do one of these for years now. But this year the stars aligned. For one thing, I was told that (because of government cuts) there wasn't going to be an official Xmas party this year. So something had to be done.

And then, a lovely Business Analyst named Nick offered to help me out by providing sound equipment. 

So that was it! We were good to go! All I needed was a) a quiz and b) a Briar.

Briar was VERY enthusiastic. 

OMG YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Like that.
 
Writing quizzes is something I've done for years and often just do them in the house for mates. I usually go a bit fancy and do flash things with PowerPoint to make them look snazzy, so that wasn't a big deal either. I spent a fair amount of time with Audacity as well to splice together bits of songs with which to PERPLEX and CONFOUND the audience.

Aaaaaand because I love "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue" I also stole their "One Song To The Tune of Another" round again. This time I repurposed it as "One Rock to the Tune of an ABBA" and I spent a couple of weeks practising the following combinations:

Light My Fire to the tune of Mamma Mia
Should I Stay or Should I Go to the tune of Dancing Queen
Creep to the tune of Waterloo
Fat Bottomed Girls to the tune of The Winner Takes It All
Smells Like Teen Spirit to the tune of Fernando

I love that round. You can be singing the most wildly inappropriate lyrics to the sweetest melodies and then you hear the ripple of sniggers when people realise what you're up to*. 

Briar, my willing assistant, helped by leaving lyric sheets on the tables. On the sheets were instructions that if teams heard me play any of the songs in that lull when I'm marking quiz sheets they had to drop what they were doing and join in. 

And for doing this - and for showing any sort of enthusiasm, in the form of singing, dancing, clapping or air-guitaring, Briar would award "Panache Points". As seen in today's blip. 

This would augment the team's scores and take quiz away from the boring b*ggers who ruin quizzes by taking them too seriously.

So.

The night before the quiz things started to go wrong and I had 25th Anniversary Party flashbacks. People started getting sick, dropping out. It dampened my spirits and increased my stress.

But as usual on the night, everyone stepped up. Briar was amazing. Nick was lovely and people were DRUNK.

This always helps.

In short, it was a brilliant night. Caro was there and even though (due to drop outs) I had to plop her with a bunch of strangers (my fellow Business Analysts from back in the day) she had a great time! 

There was singing! There was dancing! There was DANCING ON TABLES!

Poor Briar was very busy, running around, handing out Panache Points all over the place!

Most of the people there, I did not know. But of course it helped that I knew a little bit about some of the attendees. For example, I knew that Nikki the BA is a huge Bryan Adams fan. So I snuck "Summer of 69" into the quiz playlist.

And sure enough - when the very opening chords started - I could hear her clear on the other side of the room going, "Oh **** yeah!" 

She's the one on the table in the extras. 

"In some ways it was nicer that it wasn't the usual suspects," said Caro who thoroughly enjoyed Nick's company and also got to know Olivia better. She even got to have a laugh with Briar!

Briar was kind of my happiest moment for the evening. I love to see her really enjoying herself. She looked truly happy singing along to "Bohemian Rhapsody". 

Anyway. I had to stay sober all night because of course I did but this morning I'm getting lots of messages from people I had never previously met thanking me, but also admitting they have somewhat sore heads.

What made it even more special was that there were a lot of messages saying how much they really needed it this year. 

It has been tough year at work and I'm glad Briar and me could make things a little better. 

Megan the manager sent me a nice message and I thanked her for singing along to "All I Want for Christmas Is You" with me. 

"Oh god, did I do that?" she replied.

Yes. Yes you did, Megan. 

S.

* This happened during "The Winner Takes It All" when I got to the line about being left alone with big fat Fanny.