Irish Costume Party: Official Competition Results

Bjarni's Irish-themed leaving party was a massive success. At least 70% of the guests showed up wearing "something green" and there wasn't a Bono to be found all night. The host himself defied his own rules by turning up as "Dr McNinja", whoever that is, and the hostess flounced around taking the photographs and drinking cosmopolitans — which could be why they all came out blurry and drastically underlit.

Prizes were awarded as follows, although, as I had only had five weeks to prepare I didn't actually have anything ready and just ended up giving away whichever of Bjarni's possessions were in reach at the time.

5th Prize: Worst
The dusty old bottle of Grenadine from the back of the drinks cabinet was awarded to Ævar who had turned up as a member of the IRA, allegedly. He was supposed to drink it all in one go, but lost interest after somebody pointed out that there isn't actually any alcohol in Grenadine.

4th Prize: Most Original
A jar of whiskey that Kiddý had affectionately given Bjarni as a leaving present was awarded to Wies® and Jonas who came as "Ikea management" — in homage to the massive new furniture superstore that recently opened in Dublin. Apparently.

3rd Prize: Most Intelligent
A juicy pineapple was awarded to Jósi who declared that he had first decided to come wearing a potato around his neck, and then decided it would be more fitting to not wear a potato around his neck. Pure genius.

2nd Prize: Most Effort
The opportunity to take a bath in Bjarni's awesome new tub was jointly awarded to both Logi and Birkir, who spray-painted their hair and beards red with an old can of shoe-shine that somebody found in the corridor. Logi also brought along his recorder, for which he had printed out music notes from classicirishfolksongs.com earlier that evening. A little perplexing, then, as to why he insisted on playing "Three Blind Mice" on repeat for the entire night.

1st Prize: Most Convincing
Jói impressed everybody with his rather natural leprechaun act and was therefore awarded first prize — a double CD of The Cheiftan's Greatest Hits. While he was no doubt overjoyed by the honour, I did see him looking rather longingly at Ævar's bottle of Grenadine as the award ceremony drew to a close.

Other Highlights

Sam's rendition of The Irish Rover was utterly brilliant, although, as he said himself, Icelandic shoe-removing customs rendered the foot-stamping-no-nay-never bits to be less than satisfactory. Still, it was more fun than then piece I had intended to perform about a young woman who loses her husband to a storm and lies stretched on his grave for the rest of her life, which has me in tears every time I think about it, never mind when I decide to sing it at boyfriends' leaving parties. The sing-song continued later on with Mar's science fiction cover of the classic Sheryl Crow hit Every Day is a Winding Road, which I've had stuck in my head for five days in a row now.

More fun was to be had in the bedroom with Borgar and Sarah—no, not that kind of fun, dirty pups—as they tried to decide what playful objects they could sneak into Bjarni's luggage to serve him right for packing a week before his due departure date. I'm going to make sure I remove the two blocks of plastacine and the electric wires before he leaves the country.

And finally, much confusement was to be had when Bjarni's ex-wife Unnur and friend Urður turned up head-to-toe in black rubber and pink fishnet. They were just stopping off on their way to a Fetish Party (at first I thought they said "Fascist Party", which had me even more confused) and when faced with the option of dressing up as little green imps or heel-clad dominatrixes, I guess the latter was more appealing.

Apologies for the poor photography, and double apologies for trying to rescue them with an effect button in Photoshop, but hey, I don't get to be so outlandishly amateur at work.