This year it was one directive and one only: make it through to the night. Every year I start off the Sevens pumped up, ready to live up to my HK Magazine nightlife column moniker, and every year I get too drunk too early and end up in bed both freezing and sweating. This year I was ready to buck the trend.
For tourist readers or Hong Kong residents who live on an island somewhere (i.e. the “I’m an English teacher!” set) the Sevens is the best weekend of the year. Thousands of insane rugby fans descend upon our city to watch some big guys chase each other around, but really we all go for the beer and Pimm’s and people in silly costumes.
There were a few factors going against me. First, I had been drinking since Saturday the week before. This was stupid but this is Hong Kong so WTF am I supposed to do? BBQs, company dinners and being a background extra in a TV show filmed in a bar lead to a functional alcoholism, supporting the claim of me being a high-functioning alcoholic. This was going to be a challenge.
Friday rolls around and I’m ready to hit it hard: buses to the stadium are leaving at 3pm and I have already had a half-bottle of red. I have also forgotten a change of clothes so I need to go home. Wearing a suit to the Sevens is like wearing a speedo to the beach: you can do it but only if you’re the right kind of European. I am not.
8pm. I open my eyes. I am lying face-down in my suit on my bed. Great. I must have gone back to change but on the way things all fell apart. “Sevens” should be the title of a Chinua Achebe novel (RIP, man).
I power up and go to the Russell Peters show, the Play after-party, and then after-party by myself at Club 7-Eleven. The highlights are the trashy people in costumes screaming at me and yes, I am referring to both the Sevens revelers and the models at Play.
