OFF THE VINE: Where have all the party animals of Asia's media scene disappeared to?

Reports are still filtering through of scandalous behaviour at the Publishers Ball in Hong Kong, but so far, it's rather tame compared to previous years. What about the year when senior industry figures were caught skinny-dipping in the Grand Hyatt swimming pool? Or the year a couple was caught in flagrante delicto in the gent's loo? Or the year a well-known lesbian couple engaged in a snogarama in full view of panting ballgoers? So what did this year's ballgoers do? The odd illicit snog here and there, an occasional punch in the head. Nothing special. And as for photos, the most scandalous one we could find starred one of our own staff, who remains unnamed for her own safety (see pic to the right). But what ballgoers did do particularly well this year was drink. Ball boozemeister Simon "Horror" Humphreys of Reader's Digest reports a record intake of 320 bottles of wine, 300 bottles of champagne, 12 bottles of scotch, six bottles of cognac, six bottles of port and 48 bottles of vodka. Plus vats of beer for the working class. Not bad for 550 people. On wine alone, it's more than a bottle a head; then you add the spirits, and deduct from the numbers the prissy ones who don't drink, and that 60 of the guests had after-11pm "gatecrasher" tickets ... We estimate the majority of ballgoers drank at least three bottles each.

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