DOWNTON, DOWNTOWN AND 2010

People, this is what December does to you. It starts sometime around the first week of the month with a solitary mince pie, perhaps a chocolate from the tree, and just carries on and on until, by New Years Day, one finds oneself actually proper debauched - the sort of debauched person who attacks a tube of Revels for breakfast. Because that’s what I’m doing right now - and I find I can’t actually stop.

Duckie’s on tonight so we stayed in for New Year for once, watching Coronation Street and drinking Tattinger (the champagne is another habit I’ll have to get out of when I get back to work). It was really smashing not having to queue for bars / taxis / toilets / A&E and anyway, nights in with Is Nibs and kitters are just about my favourite thing to do in the world. 'Downton Abbey', Corrie Tramcrash, 'The Apprentice', 'RuPaul's Drag Race' – we’ve had a riot on our settee in 2010, I can tell you. I do wish Is Nibs liked 'The Edwardian Farm' more but you can't have everything, can you?

Said Is Nibs made delicious partridge last night, served with a watercress salad and actual real chips which were, in the eating, precisely 1000 times nicer than the oven kind. The real chips necessitated the taking down of the deep fat fryer which hasn’t been used round these parts since The Darkness were fashionable and I still quite liked Sharon Osbourne. Inevitably it was covered in that distinctive kitchen-y, top-of-the-cupboard-y grime and for a moment we questioned whether real chips would be worth the elbow grease. That was until Is Nibs produced this obscure cleaner stuff he got from Lidl yonks ago, which cut right through the fatty dust with such poetic ease (like a glider in the sky) that I’d have to nominate that particular moment as one of 2010’s real highlights. Nothing makes me more satisfied than a clean something.

Speaking of which I spent yesterday tidying out the midden that is our office room. This job took thirteen hours and by mid afternoon I just felt like crying or running away. It was certainly a bloody good job we had nothing planned for New Years Eve. As I lugged bin bags and endlessly rearranged Cor! and Fab 208 annuals on shelves, I left the music randomly shuffling through everything, old and new, that I’d added to iTunes in the past 12 months. Inevitably I suppose, 2010 came back in snapshots, such as the one of my Mum and two aunties in Spain, huddled round an iPad and screeching out the words to Max Romeo’s “Wet Dream” - except the words they had learnt back in the day were far ruder than the official ones we found on Shazam. There were some smashing family dos in 2010, culminating in Alice and Phil’s 40th anniversary party back on Halloween. We took over an entire hotel, the (fake) Beatles played, we (well, me and my Sis) boo-hoo’d at the speeches and everyone got pissed and danced to ‘The Israelites’. The day after was 2010’s undisputed Hangover Of The Year.

I remembered the June night we brought Sylvie home on the train from Paul and Steve's in her cat box. She was so tiny and we assumed she’d be like all the other kittens we’ve had - that is, terrified at first and skittering away to hide behind furniture etc., Instead, we opened up that box and out she strolled, cool as a cucumber, before arching her back and spitting directly in Captain Hook’s face. Utterly unphased she then took a leisurely promenade up the stairs and round the house, before flaking out between us on the settee (although not before attacking my goolies through my pyjama bottoms, which remains a favourite pastime.) Since that evening she has proved herself the most fearless and, without question, the naughtiest pet either of us has ever known. She is totally ASBO.

Too many fun Saturday nights, too many acts and great punters at Duckie to mention, although I suppose the big one-offs stand out. Niece Remi's birthday with all the ladies, including Mum, Sis, cousins and Aunty Jan was very sweet, although I was glad that Mouse giving herself enemas onstage was the week after their visit. Our pre-Gay Lib gay club 'Gross Indecency' was a riot of soul stormers and dressing up in synthetic fabrics. The go-go girls in cages, fake police raid and subsequent strip and dance routine to ‘Downtown’ was unforgettable. It’s unlikely, however, I would put my hand up again to doing it with me and Jels in full ‘Up The Junction’ drag, with itchy beehives, tight mini skirts and the most excruciating shoes ever invented. After three hours I could barely stand, let alone run around Battersea chasing Dennis Waterman. The free Royal Festival Hall 15th birthday was good, too, as was pissing about in the sun at Latitude with Duckie and Cloths, Norrie, Tish, Jock, Ada, Scottee and Severino. I even met, ever so briefly, my old Manchester friend John’s wife Sian (a Facebook friend) and their kids for the first time.

Screamed myself hoarse back in March at Suede’s reunion for the Teenage Cancer Trust, with Jude, Martin, Andrew, Eamonn and Wadey. We must have tested the very structure of our box at the Albert Hall to the point of collapse we were leaping about so much, clambering lairily over red velvet and over one other. Clinking bottles – “BLOODY CHEERS TO SUEDE! HOORAY!” over and over again. It was like the boozy 90s had never ended. The standing ovation after ‘Metal Mickey’ went on for five full minutes which was just extraordinary and something I'd never seen before.

Work was good, although a few really lovely people left. ‘The Complete Introduction To Disco’ box set I compiled was a helluva lot of work for Hannah, Wayne and I but I think we ended up with something we were all really pleased with. It was certainly well received and currently stands as the most blagged item ever in the history of Universal’s catalogue. Would I be like a dog going back to its own sick if I said I really want to do a Volume 2?

Stood this close to Sarah Cracknell back in October before the Saint Eteinne Fan Club show and even sort of had a conversation with her (about 'The Hay Wain' of all things) before I ran off with me nerves for a smoke, dazzled and terrified by her amazingness. There was meeting my producer hero Tony Visconti, too, which we've done on here and, back in frozen January, yer actual afternoon tea round Holly Johnson's house, replete with art and anecdotes. A very entertaining man, just as you'd expect.

With Jock and Ada down in Cadgwith in May we spent a couple of hours in a fishing boat with Nigel the crab man, and saw an actual basking shark really close up. Supernature! In the daytime we walked through carpets of bluebells and picked wild garlic: in the evenings we flopped out with red wine and ‘Archer’, definitely the best thing I saw on TV all year and the funniest show since, well, ever. If you’re not into ‘Archer’ you are nobody in my eyes. And here’s a funny thing that came back to me yesterday afternoon, as I was shoving old shit into new bin bags. While we were in Cornwall we made friends with a really lovely woman whose cottage Is Nibs and I had stayed in over a decade ago. Back then it was frankly a bit of a dump with dead flies everywhere and, I recall, cold hard floors. Anyway, it’s a private house now. One afternoon, Jock, Ada and Is Nibs were all out in the car and I was sunbathing alone on our porch. Said nice lady came out of her cottage and asked if I’d like to go in and look at the improvements they’d made since they bought it. I said yes, of course I would, and we went in together and I admired the kitchen and cooed over the living room. Then she took me upstairs, to the bedroom, where – eek! –her very hot, silver fox of a husband proceeded to strip down to his underpants and change his clothes right before my eyes. I didn’t know where to look and cannot remember what, if anything, I was able to say…. and if that doesn’t sound like the start to a 'My First Time Swinging' story in Penthouse then my name's not Paul Raymond.

Barring none, the Robyn / Goldfrapp double header in the dance tent at V this August with Toby, Andrew, Charlotte and Jels was the musical highlight of 2010. In fact, Robyn won 2010 for me, with my favourite album, single and gig of the year and I don’t think that’s happened since the Human League annus mirabilis of 1981. Also, I just don’t have the superlatives to describe how much I enjoyed being a part of Readers Wifes Fan Club in November. Working with Daniel, Dicky, Martin, H and Simon and watching, night after night, the spectacularly talented Jess, Dickie and Ryan lip-synch for their lives through 40 years of pop culture was a pleasure and a privilege. I genuinely didn’t want it to end and it is now my proudest Wifes moment in the history of Wifes.

But one thing in 2010 eclipsed even all that good stuff, and that was meeting up with my friend Alison after losing touch for two decades. We studied together in Manchester back in the 80s, where we clubbed together and got drunk together and generally lived in each others pockets for a couple of years. We even lived next door to one another in Moss Side afor some time. But in 1988 I moved back to London and Alison stayed in Manchester and we both moved flats several times, like you do at that age. Filofaxes and scribbled down addresses were lost and of course nobody had mobile phones and, well, we eventually just lost touch sometime around 1990. I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I said that this separation kind of broke my heart. It was something I would actually feel when I remembered her.

And then in the summer, by the miracle of Facebook (thanks, John Sturgis!) we hooked up again and then by the miracle of British Rail, Ali was in London, and we were sitting down having lunch together on the river at London Bridge with her bezzer Melanie and my bezzer Jelly (it was his birthday, too). Lunch turned into hours and hours, just boozing and laughing (and laughing and laughing) and it was just as if those two decades hadn’t happened at all. Which is the sign of a true friend, isn’t it?

The Revels are all gone now. Happy New Year!