Fun on the West Side: kids, football players, blondes crowd RIch's pad Celia concocts "glogg" to enhance Holiday cheer as toy Santa marches up ladder Giants thrash New Orleans as our party drinks virtually on the field Rolled over to one of the sturdiest old apartment buildings in Manhattan on the Upper West Side in the eighties for the glogg and football party at Chris's penthouse bachelor pad with its 50 inch flat screen on which football played all afternoon and evening and Sam, a pit bull almost the size of a St Bernard, resting quietly in a vast bird cage on the floor, safe from humans of the smaller variety of which two were present in the early phase of the party. The parents chatted about how the school on 85th Street is the one dissonant note in an area which all is harmony, fecundity and parental love, since the kids attending there are becoming rowdy and have taken to making remarks as strollers pass by in the street. Amid the glowing Christmas decorations which festooned the shelves in bright red and green and blue bulbs a knee high toy ladder was placed on the floor on which a small Santa Claus marched up and then marched down all by itself, while in the kitchen further supplies of a Swedish recipe for Christmas punch was being brewed up and bottled by renowned investigative reporter Celia Farber, continuing a family tradition handed down through the centuries, which you could also take home if you liked for future festive imbibing in the wine bottles she was filling and labeling "Sod lul! Ulla's Glogg: Authentic Recipe Handed down through generations -- Serve hot with blanched almonds and love -- Burgundy wine vodka cognac honey (something faded into illegibility) sugar cloves cinnamon oranges." The secret of sales success This rare item at an Andrew Jackson a throw could have departed at an even higher rate if Celia had remembered to inform guests of the possibility before they came without the requisite species, but Celia happens to be one of the most talented wordsmiths in the nation and it is a known fact that the higher the literary quality of output the less motivated an author is to engage in selling of any kind, since the feeling is that fine writing sells itself, and no writer worth her salt likes to engage in the business of hawking product. That is what agents are for. Luckily however she had invited Abdul, a robust gentleman from Senegal who though inclined to a more creative pursuit had had to resort to selling thousand dollar suits at Brooks Brothers for the moment, at least, and was willing to share his hard gained expertise. We asked him what the secret was to success in sales and recorded the answer on video (see second video at end of strips). What did he say again? We'll have to check. Oh yes, he said - and Gina agreed - that the secret was to tell them how fabulous they look. Meanwhile while admiring what appeared to be the most delightful one year old on the Upper West Side we chatted to Barbi, the dynamic blonde mother of Spence, the seven year old who was as equally modest and charming as the babe, and she explained that after at least one divorce and possibly two she had been forced to take employment currently in an office selling the services of an Australian limousine service called Mango to stars of stage, screen and the corporate hierarchy, which after being in jobs more in show business she said was a bit more difficult to reconcile with her motherly responsibilities. But she said she was a supremely good saleswoman and was confident she could sell bottles of Ulla's Glogg to a teetotaler. When goal kicks go in the wrong direction By this time the room was full of dynamic blondes and robust men who looked as if they had all been footballers in the youth, and all kept their eye on the game on the vast screen as the New York Giants thrashed New Orleans, which was easy to keep up with even as one was carrying on a conversation because it was almost as if the entire party was on the field with the players, although it must be admitted that the overwhelming HD screen expanse had the odd effect of actually making the players seem less realistic, in a sense, because they were so excruciatingly well defined, far better in fact than in real life. We chatted to Chris who is an important figure now in sports and concert production ("I gave away four tickets to this game!" he told me) having played tight end in his earlier days, when he was the designated kicker for his team, apparently a reliable one, since when we asked him if his kick had ever gone awry he told us no, he could remember only one time, when a high wind had toppled the ball before his foot could reach it and it had gone sideways. The referee had insisted against his indignant protest that it didn't need to be repeated. His most memorable positive sports achievement was in baseball, he said, when he had batted a ball so powerfully that it had risen up and over the heads of the crowd to hit the scoreboard smack in the middle with a resounding crash that had echoed round the stadium. Two hundred friends on the roof We also chatted to another dynamic blonde, Colby, who came with Gina, both marketing geniuses. She had rescued the pitbull from an animal shelter and given it to Rich, the tall athletic host, and she informed us that she liked to keep her own apartment clean and clear even of books, although she had read many, but once she had done so she made sure she gave them to a suitable friend. By comparison Rich's cosy hideaway might have seemed a little crowded especially with so many guests but outside it boasts an enormous rooftop patio in two directions, broad enough to accommodate two hundred. That's about how many people turn up to his summer festivities, he said, and "I don't have two hundred friends!"