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If someone had told me when I was a kid that one day I would be sitting in a warehouse in London on a hay bale drinking a whisky cocktail, I’d have looked at them with an angled head, squinted my brow and then told them they were silly. Hell, if someone had said that to me three years ago I’d have done the same thing but with more of an arched eyebrow to note my disbelief.
But, then, such is life. And that situation is exactly where I found myself recently for the kick off of the 2013 Monkey Shoulder For One Night Only events.

It was, perhaps, an unfortunate occurrence that the night in question saw freezing winds that managed to bite through every inch of clothing, leave noses red (and not from too much drink) and make the warehouse-goers keep all their layers on. At the end of March, one doesn’t expect this even in chilly England. But this is no ordinary year, weather wise.

And so, arriving at the warehouse I greeted the proffered purple and black rugby top (to keep everyone in the ‘jockey’ theme of the night) with outstretched, goosebumpy arms and glad grin. No amount of whisky could have warmed me through on that nippy eve.

Though my partner and I showed up early, the warehouse was already teeming with life from the besuited post-work crowd through to trendy Shoreditch folks who likely lived a stones-throw from the warehouse and who were probably on their way to another warehouse afterwards.

A large plastic horse greeted our entrance, while to our right piles of hay bales turned the scene to barn-chic. On a raised platform, two bars distributed the three cocktails of [...]