The high life

[shewhomust]

The Guardian reports that civil servants at the DTI have been living in luxury at the taxpayer's expense. It describes a Christmas lunch for 10 staff last year. They hired a room at London's Hilton Metropole, and in the course of the afternoon, the ten of them got through £475 at the bar.
They drank:

• two beers;


• 14 vodkas and mixers;


• 23 gin and tonics;


• 11 bottles of wine;


• seven litres of sparkling water;


• three Irish coffees;


• five coffees;


• three whisky shots;


• three shots of Cointreau;


• two Cosmopolitan cocktails;


• two Bloody Marys;


• three Mojito cocktails


• and two BaseLine cocktails.

I was all ready to be outraged at these people spending my money, but when I heard that list, my first thought was "My, they were mixing their drinks, weren't they?", and my second was "Drinks at the Hilton must be cheaper than I thought!"

That is not the bar bill of a group of people determined to live in luxury at someone else's expense; it's a bunch of non-(serious)-drinkers saying "Oh, well, since it's Christmas... Yes, I'll have a cocktail / glass of wine / shot of something with my coffee...". If I had been ordering those drinks, and expense had been no object, I'd have passed £475 on the 11 bottles of wine (I could hit that total in local restaurants, easy, never mind at the Hilton) - and do you know what these places charge for mineral water?