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LONG TO RAIN OVER US January 2003 As I enter the year 2003 I do so in the certain knowledge that no matter what pleasures it may hold for me - even if I were to win the lottery or get pulled by Nicole Kidman or were to witness Ant and Dec spontaneously combusting and setting fire to Graham Norton - that the very nicest thing that fate has in store for me could but only pale into insignificance when compared to the supreme moment of joy that I experienced in the year 2002. For it was then, on a typically inhospitable Manchester evening, the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in full swing, that I sat in front of the TV set in the comfort of my own home, warm, dry and happy, watching the Queen getting cold, wet and even more miserable than usual.      It was the first and probably the only time in my life that I have been or will be in a more enviable position than our Monarch, or any of her flawed offspring for that matter, and the experience was quite wonderful, it was as if all my birthdays had come at once and a couple of Christmases had been thrown in for good luck.      As I opened a bottle of claret in celebration I reflected that things could not possibly get better. Then, unbelievably, they did. For then the severely dampened if not thoroughly drenched Queen, both pissed on and pissed off at one and the same time, became exposed not only to the elements but to just about the most mind-numbingly awful 'cabaret' it has been my misfortune to witness. Indeed the only reason I was able to put up with it for more than a couple of minutes was because I knew the Queen was having to watch it too, live and loud, and that unlike her I had the advantage of being able to switch the sound off. Which I very quickly did.      I can't remember the names of most of the third-rate performers who took part in this musical debacle - the woman who used to be in the M People, the one who sounds like she's singing whilst at the same time chewing on a pound of tripe was one of them - but the name of the fourth-rate MC/DJ, a black gentleman who masqueraded under the name of 'Grandmaster Flash', will remain etched on my memory for evermore, as will his excruciating attempts to 'entertain' his audience. I make no attempt to describe his performance. Suffice to say that if his behaviour were to catch on it is the sort of thing that is likely to put evolution back about five thousand years, and that those who had the good sense to miss him and the rest of this sorry show can count themselves extremely fortunate.      This was Manchester for God’s sake, supposedly a celebration of Manchester and what that city has to offer; and when you think of the local musical talent the organisers could have enlisted to perform at the closing ceremony, Oasis, James, Badly Drawn Boy, Ian Brown to name but a few, then they not only got it wrong but, as they say in modern parlance, got it wrong big time. For had Oasis been invited not only would we have had superb music to round of a superb Commonwealth Games but there would have been a better than even money chance that Liam Gallagher would have told the Queen to fuck off - and not undeservedly some might say after the off-hand way she treated the poor little terminally-ill Kirsty Howard - and then my cup of joy would have runneth over even more than it did. (Incidentally it was noticeable that the Duke of Edinburgh kept a healthy distance from the poor mite, probably because he thought her oxygen tank might be a bomb)      As I said at the outset, nothing that might happen in the year 2003 will be able to match what happened on that damp Manchester evening in the year 2002, but something half as good would be nice. Here's hoping.