Saturday night a group of us were in the pub. The bar owner told us in passing that the Kaiser Chiefs were upstairs in the restaurant at a table for twenty-six, having a Christmas party.  At first he didn't know who they were because they had used an unfamiliar name to book the party and he wouldn't have recognized them.  Well you wouldn't, would you?  But then one of his young staff had informed him in hushed tones.

We all agreed they're really good.  We like their music, though we're not their target audience, we like their songs--"Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ruby" and...what are the others?  The lyrics and melodies are there in our heads...on the tips of our tongues.

Definitely A-List, we thought.  Surprising that they would be here in our humble local establishment but then on second thought, they do hail from this part of Leeds.  They're probably back here celebrating with their old St. Mary's school mates, home for the holidays.

Later they filtered down into the bar after their party, some still wearing the tissue paper crowns from their Christmas crackers.  The girls were in sequined hot pants with dark tights or sequined mini-skirts.  They wore shiny haircuts and lashings of mascara and chatted with dramatic intensity, their eyes never leaving each other's faces.

The boys, some from the band, sported beards and hair in careful disarray.  The beards, a notch beyond stubble, had been coaxed into growth, were not yet the persistent whiskers of older men, sprouting unbidden and unwanted. 

Their faces were symmetrical and clear-eyed; their clothes were of the moment.  It looked as if they were carrying around their own source of flattering light reflecting upwards out of the glasses they were holding.  We thought they looked so bright, had such star quality.

We finished our beers and left to get some Indian food, shuffled through the busy bar by then full of the young people, and out into the freezing night.  We braced ourselves going down the hill, grasping each other's hands and laughing as we steadied each other over the black ice.  If you fall, don't take me with you, we joked.