I had a party at my house to celebrate the New Year and to avoid having to sit on my own, watching myself having a great New Year on the Jools Holland show. I am giving up drinking for a month or so, so made sure that I drank enough alcohol to keep me drunk for the next few weeks. Although I hadn't intended it to be a massive do, quite a lot of friends and friends of friends turned up. Consequently there were people in my home who I had never met before, which wasn't a problem, quite the opposite.
At about quarter to midnight the doorbell rang and more guests arrived. I was standing in the kitchen and saw three women walking through the corridor towards me. As my alcohol sodden eyes (I was nearly full to the brim with booze) focused on them I thought to myself, "That woman looks like Chrissie Hynde, off of the Pretenders and vegetarianism." Although the party was of course packed with celebrities (the man who played the original Tizer head on the CD:UK sponsorship adverts, who was then replaced for not being any good at playing disembodied heads, being the best of them) I do not know Chrissie Hynde and thus did not expect her to turn up at my house, so I assumed for a second that it was someone who just looked like Chrissie Hynde. Exactly like Chrissie Hynde.
By the time she was up close I realised that she looked so much like Chrissie Hynde, because she was actually Chrissie Hynde. I was bamboozled.
"Blimey, what are you doing here?" I blathered to her. She ignored me, which given that she was in my house was a little bit rude, though totally understandable. She didn't know me after all, so had no way of knowing it was my house.
After she'd passed I kind of assumed that the magic of alcohol had caused me to imagine that Chrissie Hynde had somehow turned up at my house. This feeling was augmented by the fact that the person I was next to told me I was being stupid to think it was her. Had I been sober I might have thought to make a joke about her being a pretender. Luckily I was drunk, so no-one would ever had to endure such a rubbish gag.
However, it turned out that it was really her (which would have made the joke doubly unamusing). She was a friend of my friend's friend. Apparently one of the other women who had arrived was Beth Orton. But I don't really know who that is, whereas I do know who Chrissie Hynde is. She is Chrissie Hynde.
With all these musicians being looked at by minor celebrities (like the Tizer bloke) it seemed that my real new year was going to be similar to my false new year of a couple of weeks back. If only I could have got Jools Holland to come along to introduce them.
Before I could work out why Chrissie Hynde had unexpectedly turned up in my house, however, she was gone. Her and her friends did a circuit of my house and then left. Perhaps they were annoyed by people not understanding why Chrissie Hynde had turned up at a party that had no Chrissie Hynde expectations.
I don't know where they were planning to head next, or whether they would arrive there in the next ten minutes in time for a kiss from a confused stranger. Someone said they wanted to be at a party with a fountain (I don't have one) which seemed as confusing as anything that had happened in the previous few minutes.
I didn't mind that they had come and gone. For me it was enough that Chrissie Hynde from off the Pretenders and vegetarianism had been in my house. In a sense it is the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me.
I think it is a portent of good luck for 2004.
Happy New Year everyone, whether you are Chrissie Hynde or not.
