IT’S a slightly unfamiliar feeling, but I must be going through a happy phase, because a few days ago I actually threw a party in my home – and I hardly ever do that.
Yes, I guess I am pretty contented with my lot – despite all the cynicism not to mention the war, terrorism and environmental worries that hover over us all like ravenous spectres.
Yes, I'm in good spirits, right enough, but I am not in good physical health. Actually, I am dictating this column from my sickbed, where I languish with the sorest throat I've ever had plus other symptons of the 'flu.

A neighbour has just called round to see how I am, so I have roped him into writing this entry at the PC in my bedroom, while I dictate from my sickbed.
Now, back to my party, which was held on Saturday, January 6. Admission was by invitation only. I designed the invitation cards, using photographs and all sorts of, er, humour.
The event was to be “an elegant soiree to celebrate Epiphany�, it said on my cards, but as so few of my friends are practising Christians that I added in brackets … “okay, it’s a p***-up – intended to banish the post-Christmas blues�.
Well, the party was a huge success, judging from the feedback, but I have to say it started quite badly due to my lack of organisation and poor timing.
Let's leave aside cock-ups with the invitations (some folk never got theirs), all I had to do by way of preparation really was to clean and tidy my flat. I say 'all' but that was a massive job because I am so very untidy - nay, a total pig in my living habits.
So I gave myself a whole day for the clean up of my abode, starting in the front living room with a controlled explosion and then working back through all the rooms to my large, and usually filthy, kitchen at the rear.
Big mistake. I should have cleaned the kitchen first - because the first guests started to arrive as I was still mopping the cookhouse floor, all of a muck-sweat, and scrubbing grease stains off the tiled splashbacks.
Well, anyway, I sat the first-comers down with a drink in the front room, which smelled of Mr Sheen spray by then, and left them to their own devices as a I continued mopping frantically in the kitchen.
Not only had I left myself too little time for the clean-up, but I had totally run out of time to go to the shops in Liscard to pick up supplies for the party - cheese puffs, a shed-load of booze, paper bowls and napkins etc.
Thankfully, Billy Bustimes and Blondie Fantail arrived bang on time at 5.15pm, so I was able to send them out the local shops in New Brighton for supplies.
The landlady of Hell's Waiting Room, Eleganta Chignon, also arrived very early to see if I needed any help. She brought with her a fantastic cheeseboard.
She and Billy Bustimes agreed to go out to buy masses of ice for me from Bargain Booze.
Inwardly, I was beginning to panic by this stage, but after I had taken a a huge swig of red wine and had masticated my way through a handful of cheese puffs, I felt better.
I fired into the shower then had a shave with a rusty razor, cutting my face to shreds in the process.
Not to worry. I whizzed into my bedroom, found a cleanish pair of jeans crumpled up in a corner, pulled them on and also jumped into my favourite shirt (actually, my pulling shirt, though I had no time to iron it so I don't think anyone was impressed).
More guests started to arrive. They looked at me in horror as my face was covered with little blood-spattered swabs of newspaper to staunch all those shaving nicks.
Even Mr Craggs, the landlord of the Waiting Room, came to the party. I played a Dorothy Squires track specially for him, since he used to be a regular in a rather elegant if old-fashioned nightclub in Wigan, called the King of Clubs, also frequented by my mum Teresa during the Swinging Sixties.
I am always surprised that the music of the late Dorothy Squires isn't more popular than it is. Having said that, I only really listen to her when I am doing the hoovering, which obviously is not very often...
We all have favourite tracks for various activities in the home, do we not? For instance, I always take a bath while listening to 'Zadok The Priest'.
The food was very good at my party, though this was not really due to me. Blondie Fantail cooked and brought along a marvellous big pot of curry, and so did Commuting Mitch. Tallulah Swells arrived fashionably late, carrying a great Thai dish containing king prawns.
I didn't really cater for vegetarians as I don't think they should be encouraged but I did send out for a veggie pizza for Aintree Liza. Dixie the Jazzman kindly agreed to pick it up for me while I was busy circulating.
(Dixie, incidentally, came round the lunchtime after the night of the party and started tidying up for me. I was so impressed with that I am considering making him my official bitch for 2007. All it would take is from me to give him a few rollies now and then ... and I do that already since he's always on the scrounge for baccy.)
But I digress. Back to preparations for the party ...
All the cans of beer and cider, and the bottles of white wine, were placed in the bath with loads of ice... an idea from Duncan Kindlyface and one I was not familiar with though it is, apparently, a frequent enough practice.
The only slight problem was that people needed to go into the bathroom to use the toilet, effectively closing the bar/bath for several minutes at a time.
And there is no bolt or lock on my bathroom door. Well, if you live on your own, a lockable bathroom door is hardly a necessity.
Anyway, people seemed to muddle through that difficulty, though some of the women guests seemed anxious to protect their modesty to a degree that I had never previously noticed about them.
And some of the younger guests were surprised to note that most of the music came from real vinyl albums played on a proper record player and piped though my ancient Bang and Olufsen amp with its clunk-a-matic controls - giving a brilliant, warm sound that no I-Pod thingy or other digitised modern system could ever hope to replicate.
Mind you, it was an effort to get the system to work. It needed the help of both Swampy and Dr Gyggle to hook in all the different wires. I can't do that sort of thing. It gives me nosebleeds.
Anyway, the result was cheese-tastic. I remember playing tracks from the Steve Miller Band, Aztec Camera, the Style Council and the fantastic 'Somewhere Down the Crazy River' by Robbie Robertson.
It wasn't entirely an old farts music special, however, because we also had Tupac ft Elton John singing 'Ghetto Gospel', which almost always makes me cry, but only in a good way.
The soiree was supposed to transfer to Hell's Waiting Room from 10pm but actually most of us didn't get there until midnight, only to find that Billy Bustimes, Duncan Kindlyface and Popstar Paul had got there first and were playing live music.
Unfortunately I lost my jacket in the pub, or on the way to it, and with it the keys to my flat. Arrgh, not again.
Regardless of that, some people wanted to go back to my flat after Hell's Waiting Room closed for even more drinks.
And we managed to get into the flat after Popstar Paul shimmied up the front wall like a rat up a drainpipe and got in through an open window and then let us in.
Then more drink was taken. More music was played on my clunk-a-matic stereo, and eventually an argument broke out about John Lennon, which resulted in Dieppe crying.
Well, Lennon is her hero and she had had a quite a bit to drink. She couldn't bear to hear Popstar Paul insisting that Lennon was, in fact gay. How shocking to think that a major showbiz star could be gay!
It didn't help that I joined in the argument to say that 'Imagine' is one of the worse songs ever written and that Lennon was a wife-beater.
Still it wouldn't have been a good party if it hadn't ended up with someone skriking...

BARMAN BURLY from Hell's Waiting Room was one invited guest who unfortunately couldn't make it to the party, but nevertheless he has sent me this poem about it...

Pity I missed one hell of a party,
With all at the Perch both hale and hearty.
I was totally out of it, just not my norm,
And far removed from my usual form.

Sorry 'bout last night, to scupper your campaign,
Being honest I couldn't leave on that plane.
I just was not well, nowhere near right,
Being brutally honest, I just felt like sh**e.

I've pondered the problem, you have with your coat.
You need a device, just like a remote.
But what good's a remote, some might guess.
Yours is special, it's got G.P.R.S.

If that doesn't work and it still gets took,
We'll need to design an alarmed coat-hook.
Should it be removed, no longer to hang,
The whole ensemble goes off with a bang.

Failing that keep your keys in your pocket,
In that situation there's no need to lock it.
Buy a key fob, that beeps when you whistle,
The moral is there, here ends my epistle.

Why am I trying to make these words rhyme?
When heaven knows I just haven't the time.
The longer the poem it appears to get crapper,
I'm starting to sound like an old urban rapper.

Wearing stupid hats and my fingers apart,
Expounding verbosity straight from my heart
Festooned in gold rings and dripping in bling,
Convincing us all they really can sing.

Shouting profanities and reviling the state,
Trying to be someone we know we should hate.
Gesticulating wildly, going down on one knee,
You all must agree, IT just doesn't suit me.

See you later in the pub, at our local shrine,
Some time through the night I'll buy you a wine.
It's usually late, but you're there at the close,
Hitherto and henceforward I'm sticking to prose.

*** Nice one Burly. There will be other parties. You MUST be there and you MUST sing Leaving On A Jet Plane. No-one does it better. And you would have liked the Dorothy Squires tracks at my party, I think, because I know you are an Elkie Brooks fan and there are similarities between her and La Squires. STEVE.

• Post to:
•  del.icio.us
•  Digg
•  Newsvine
•  Nowpublic
•  Reddit