Thursday 29th December 2005

To London to catch up with my friend Aria whom I’ve mentioned here a couple of times before. She lives near Atlanta, US of A, but she’s moving here in the new year and has a British fiancé, Wade. I’ve not seen her since I was last Stateside in May and so it was great to catch up. We met in Camden. She had just joined up with another American friend, Holly, who was charming and studies fashion at St Martin’s College, just like in the opening verse to the Pulp song, ‘Common People’. Holly and Aria were charming company and before long A joined us too. It rarely strikes me as odd that the majority of my friends are girls but that’s certainly the case. I do have a lot of female friends and it’s always been that way. I suppose I’m very lucky really. You need the council of women – it’s invaluable and you’ve no chance of ever understanding the opposite sex unless you can pick their brains about things. It amazes me that some men don’t know a single woman. These are the men that cat-call in the street I suppose.

The four of us travelled into Soho to meet Wade for the first time. It wasn’t Aria’s first time meeting him, obviously, she’s engaged to marry him and meeting him for the first time today could only be seen as over trusting and hasty.

I’ve joked before about interrogating anyone wishing to marry Aria to see if they’re of suitable character. In reality, I wouldn’t do that because it’s not my place to and anyway it’s really got nothing to do with me. I’d probably just be told to mind my own business. But I needn’t have worried on that score because Wade appears to be erudite, friendly, funny, sociable and very well presented. So the signs are all good. Aria will admit, any day of the week, to being a compete anglophile and so I suppose it’s inevitable she would eventually marry someone from this miserable little Island and I can’t think of anyone more suitable than Wade. The other good thing about it is there’s bound to be great music at the wedding.

He’s a promoter and is hosting a very interesting party at the Tavistock Hotel on New Year’s Eve. It’s set in a bowling alley and the impressive flyer promises some rockabilly, some bowling, and some good times. It sounds wonderful. I won’t be there, however, for two good reasons. One, A and I have already planned our failsafe, unambitious, quiet night in with a bottle of wine on the 31st. Two, there’s a ridiculous tube strike which means that nobody will be able to get in and out of the city centre easily. What a selfish, selfish, selfish time to strike, It’s a pre-meditated attack against everyone having a good time.

Also, the tube network is sponsored on New Year’s Eve to stay open late and be free. This year, it’s sponsored by my old nemesis, Shatwest Bank, and whilst I like the idea of all their plans and advertising being torn up in front of their greedy, thieving faces, I think it’s outrageous that a group of over-paid public service workers like London Underground staff should be allowed to strike at all on New Years Eve and retain their jobs. It’s true, they are paid more than anyone else working in public transport.

The only upside to the whole debacle is that it may convince Londoners to stay at home or organise house parties this year, which are by far the best NYE options, and in doing so learn a valuable lesson for future years. I dream of a time when EVERYONE hosts a house party on NYE, and all doors are open, meaning that you could just wonder along any street and wander into any house. Actually, no, that would mean that my house would be open with a load of strangers in it whilst I was elsewhere. I’m not having that. They’d be through my DVDs like a pack of wolves. Okay, all houses are open whilst the owner in residence. If the owner decided to leave to go to another party, everyone must leave too, either joining the owner at whatever party he was going to, or just find a different one, which wouldn’t be hard. There’s a plan. If I were King…,

I hope the tube strike doesn’t effect Wade’s party. I know there’s always the financial responsibility of hosting your won night which is hard to ignore. I admire him, I wouldn’t have the nerve to host big public parties myself.

So we shall have to see what happens. I do feel slightly guilty about not lending my own support, but it’s not a snub, it’s just that I have my own very definite and concrete plans for NYE, seeing as it’s potentially the worst night of any year, and that mantra is Keep It Simple. And the plans have already been made with A, so…. Och, we’ll probably end up having a couple of glasses of wine and going anyway.

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