A worms eye view of the British Ball

By a Social Butterfly.
Two hundred party goers packed a banqueting suite at Panama’s Miramar Hotel on Friday (December 3) for the annual British Ball – only one element was missing – the Brits!

I met Russians, Canadians, Americans, Trinidadians and Australians but could only spot about 20 ‘real Brits’ including our ambassador Richard Austen.
The evening started with an opportunity to have your photograph taken with an (American) British guardsman – this year for free – courtesy of BMW(non British).
Before dinner was served there was plenty of time to mingle and drink as much free champagne as you could handle. The food was not the run of the mill ‘Rubber Chicken,’ found at these events and the steak was of a very high quality, a touch of the “roast beef of England.”
I am not sure about the desserts as a very pretty lady from Trinidad with a chocolate fetish ate all 10 portions on our table.
Surprisingly the white wine was better than red which gave me an early opportunity to switch back to the Black Label whisky. The slowness of the table service was not an issue as we were encouraged to head for the bar and collect ourown bottle.
A tombola with great prizes, including a return flight to old Blighty, was followed by a disco and live band which I sat out due to my war wound suffered while “recapturing the Falklands.”
We finished the night off by drinking the Chanel aftershave gift in the homebound taxi .