“When I decide to throw a party I almost always immediately regret it. Well, not immediately: the regrets gather after I have invited too many people to cancel it without it being absurd. As the date gets closer my enthusiasm drains away and my heart grows heavy. I contemplate what’s ahead: a whole load of perfectly nice people will come round to my house, talk nonsense loudly for 5 hours while I sweat at the kitchen sink opening bottles pouring wine and searching for glasses. After much revelry in which all I have done is wash glasses the guests leave me alone to contemplate my trashed house.
But they will have a good time, and maybe it won’t be so bad, I tell myself. This was where I was when this earlier this year, when somebody said “Why don’t you get a cocktail service at your party? It will be fun. I know a great guy called Guy who will sort you out." I called him up, and he said “leave it to me”.
Guy picked three or four cocktails and arrived in good time with all the ingredients including ice, limes, lemons and bunches of odd looking herbs. He mixed me a gimlet – I think. I can’t remember but it was delicious. As the people arrived they ordered their drink and I was free to mingle with the sound of the cocktail shaker in the distance. I had a marvellous night, and so did all my guests. I had at last found the key to a good party: I had my own cocktail steward. I will never throw a party again without Guy at the controls. I heartily and gratefully recommend him as a hard-working fun-loving party accelerator with no equal.”