Last week I mentioned that we had our company Christmas party coming up and that everyone in the office was on a diet and fussing about what to wear, and the important business of accessories has been discussed at length. Well… the male members of the Ely

Last week I mentioned that we had our company Christmas party coming up and that everyone in the office was on a diet and fussing about what to wear, and the important business of accessories has been discussed at length. Well... the male members of the Ely Standard team would like me to point out that none of them is on a diet and thoughts of accessories, have and never will, enter their sensible male heads.

In fact, I have it on good authority that our male colleagues had no idea what they were wearing even several hours before the event on Friday. Unlike us ladies, who have been fretting for weeks about fake tans, hair-dos, matching shoes and bags, and that difficult dilemma of whether to go for attractive underwear or underwear that will flatten the stomach and hold everything in.

I went for the flattening kind and regretted it after three spoonfuls of parsnip soup and a mouthful of bread roll. The sacrifice seems to be: big knickers and flat stomach, but definitely no food!

We all spent hours shopping for our clothes and accessories and hours getting ready, only to almost freeze to death in our skimpy clothes and bare legs just running from the venue to the car park.

One of my female colleagues also told me a funny story on the night about female modesty tape. Now, this is a family newspaper, so if I call this tape T Tape I hope everyone understands.

Anyway, my colleague was running round the house on Friday night because she couldn't find her T Tape. Eventually, her husband looked up from his newspaper and said 'what are you looking for', so she told him she couldn't possibly wear her new dress without T Tape and she couldn't find it. 'Aahh, I think I have used it', he told my seriously worried colleague, until, that is, he added 'some photographs came lose from the photograph album and I used a roll of tape I found in the bedroom to stick them back in'!

So there you have it. T Tape has multiple uses, but please don't try using photographic sticky pads instead of T Tape as I'm not sure if it works the other way round... and will not be responsible for any side affects should you give it a try!

Friday is the big lights switch-on in Ely and while you are admiring the Christmas lights in the next few weeks, please spare a thought for all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes to ensure the event happens every year. All the fund-raisers, and also the efforts of people like Mark Peters at Star FM who make sure we have an event that rivals any of those in surrounding towns and cities.

But I would also like to give Philip Sindall and his Light Brigade team a mention. They are all volunteers and after starting very early on Sunday morning to erect the Christmas lights, were lucky to still have all their fingers and toes at the end of an extremely cold day.