"Girl, I wanna take you to a gay bar"

As I know she's not too happy right now I am happy to tell a tale for Cheryl.
However the suggested one wouldn't be very interesting at all.
However, sticking with the new year theme, how about this one?

31 Dec 1997: Fantastic year is rounded off in style with Reckless, Dream Girl, Funny Dance, Temper Tantrum, myself & Funny Dance's moody bird bring in the new year in London's Trafalger square.

1997 was almost definitely the best year of my life. As such it deserved to be sent off with gusto.
During that year, we must have been to about 70-80 gigs, I'd passed my driving test, got a sort of promotion at work, had Reckless live with us for the most part & actually enjoyed being married to Temper Tantrum (mostly!).
Reckless was driving a taxi for a living at the time & a few hours before we were set to leave for the capital he got a parcel job to Poole which was too valuable to him to turn down.
Undeterred the rest of us made the short trip to Long Buckby station, where we would catch the train to London. If memory serves it was about 5pm. We had brought a few tinnies & a couple of vodka miniatures for the journey. Funny Dance & I decided to have some wiz too just before getting on the train.
We'd only gone as far as Northampton when it started. Funny Dance started talking & he did not stop. His words were coming out like volleys of machine gun fire. I took the piss out of him mercilessly, his moody bird kept digging him in the ribs, Temper Tantrum started hitting him in a vain bid to silence him & Dream Girl (who back then was still a bit of an unknown quantity) sat quietly till she finally snapped telling him to "stop talking crap will you or you may put me off drugs for life". We arrived at Euston to be hurriedly ushered of the platform as there was some sort of scare going on.
ACE!
As Long Buckby's ticket office was closed we hadn't yet bought tickets. Thanks to that scare we'd all made the journey for the princely sum of £0.00p.

On the other side of the barrier the danger seemed to have passed & we went up to the pub that overlooks the concourse where we waited for Reckless to join us. We were probably there about an hour or so. We had a couple of pints, loosened up a bit more & Dream Girl started edging out of her shell a bit. Reckless arrived having left the taxi at Highgate tube station (where we always park, to this day if driving into London) & we had another pint before getting the tube to Piccadilly Circus. By now all the pubs were rammed & it became a real chore getting a drink. Temper Tantrum, Dream Girl & Reckless had their wiz & Funny Dance & I had a little top up as well (I can't remember if moody bird had any, in fact I only remember the fact that she was there. I don't think she actually contributed anything to the evening). After about 3 pubs it was getting harder to get in anywhere, never mind get served. Then we spotted an alleyway leading to a very quiet looking pub, that'll do. As we walked down the alleyway 2 bouncers stopped us and told us that we were very welcome but felt they ought to warn us it was a gay pub. A quick conflab was had & we agreed that in the interests of having somewhere to drink it would be fine.

It was better than fine it was great, we had lot's of room to hang out & soak up the atmosphere of the place. Not one of us had ever been in a gay bar before. I enjoyed the experience, being me I just carried on partying. Reckless & Dream Girl were reasonably nonchalant about it too.
Funny Dance however, was not so sure. In his wizzed up, beered up state it all got a bit intimidating for him. He insisted that either Reckless or myself accompanied him to the toilets, which of course gave us lots of ammo for teasing him about how he was getting into the spirit of things. Moody bird was also quite fazed by it all, regularly pointing out two people of the same sex kissing or holding hands or something. Time pressed on & though most of us were happy there, it wasn't where we wanted to bring in the new year.

It was now about 11 & we were not getting into any other pubs so, along with grillions of others, went to the offy & bought some bottles & stuff. We also bought whistles off some guy in the street & we joined a steady procession of folk swaying down Haymarket on route to Trafalger Square, swigging from our bottles & blasting on our whistles as we went. About this time 2 things became apparent; It was chuffing freezing & Dream Girl was in a bit of a state. She passed out in Trafalger Square, only briefly & then she was violently sick.
Now it was about five to midnight & we were all huddled together near one of the lions with thousands of other revellers just waiting. Sadly, some years beforehand they had decided to barricade off the fountains. I know at least me & Reckless would've been in there.
It was very noisy. Lot's of people shouting, hollering & singing. Still we listened out for Big Ben, then suddenly this electronic sign started flashing happy new year & we all jumped about like mad, hugging each other & complete strangers. We never heard the chimes till about the 7th one!
Minutes later the police started herding everybody out, this took ages. We went to the tube to get to Highgate. Rather sensibly London Transport provided free tubes & buses to everyone in the interests of getting all the people out of the city. We got to Highgate where we all bundled into Reckless' taxi (he hadn't been drinking obviously) & set off back up the M1 to the sounds of a specially made best of 97 tape that I'd constructed.
Paranoid android was orgasmic!
To this day I've not had a better New Year's eve which was really fitting as all of us (bar moody bird) had a riotously fan-chuffing-tastic 1997.