NYE

It’s New Year’s Eve.  A time for quiet reflection; for anticipation of change and growth; for getting utterly totalled and starting the year in a pool of quiet, hungover regret. The latter two are yet to come, it still being the morning.  Long gone are the days are when I could start celebrations before midday and remain standing beyond the Six O’Clock News.  Now, I have to postpone the first drink until well into the evening if I am to avoid being the King of Early Doors.

 Many years of Bacchic indulgence have taught me that nothing really interesting happens before midnight, when Cinderella and all the other debutantes have scuttled off back to their cold kitchens to sit amongst mice, or in front of their aga, drinking Mint Options and listening to back end of Radio 4 before bed. During my youth, I lived by this maxim: the later the night, the fuller the life.  I didn’t achieve a great deal during this period of my life, coincidentally. Apart from becoming a skilled martini mixer. And a champion smoker of fags.

The importance of New Year’s Eve has rollercoastered over the years.  That is, there have been slow ones, fast ones, headlong plunges into murky abysses, loud screaming ones, quiet anticipatory ones which never quite live up to expectations, and horribly expensive ones which are over before you really know what’s going on, and which leave you with a blur of colours for memories, and little else. I think they were the best. But I’m not quite sure.

 I remember once leaving a pub at a quarter to midnight, spending midnight itself on the tube with a squadron of party comrades, and drinking and smoking on same tube.  What strikes me most is that no-one was bothered we were smoking on the tube.  There was a general air of insouciance – it’s New Year’s Eve, let shit happen.  I suspect if I were to light up on the tube now, I’d be locked up, and I wouldn’t even deign to complain. Those were more innocent times, the likes of which we shall never see again.  

I suspect my celebrations will involve a few home tipples, a trip to a late night pub, and a moment when I decide shots will be a great idea, followed closely by a cab home. Fairly tame, but very age-appropriate.

Whatever it is you plan to do –whether you’re already on the Jaegerbombs and chemical bumps, or you plan a nice evening in with a bottle of port, the remnants of a Christmas cheeseboard and Classic FM, or something between the spectrum of nihilistic hedonism and cosy tweeness, enjoy.  But remember, the numbers don’t matter.  Two Thousand and Twelve and Two Eleven are artificial constructs. Tomorrow will be a variant on today, there will be no magical transformation at midnight as the stars realign and a new era crashes in.  We mark time for many reasons, reflection, anticipation, so we know when to turn on the TV to watch whatever shite is going to kill a bit more time. But that's all they are. An imposition on the chaos of  existence so we can down the days between weekends.

For what is life, other than killing time between birth and death? The dates remind us – we’re not here forever, but we are here now. This is your life. Get out there and live it.  Even if tomorrow you regret it. It’s better to regret something you have done than something you haven’t.  

It'sss Christmassss!!!!!!

At my work Christmas do on Friday afternoon*, after a few afternoon warmers, and a decision that driving home was going to be a Saturday morning activity rather than a Friday afternoon one, the conversation turned to favourite Christmas songs.  The results were fairly predictable – a majority vote for Fairytale of New York, the youngest member of staff showing both their age  and ignorance by claiming supremacy for Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas is Everything Including the Head of John the Baptist ( or whatever it was she sang), and my vote for David Bowie and Bing Crosby. Because I’m cooler than everyone else, and occasionally people need to be reminded of that fact.**  

The conversation quickly moved on to who fancied whom, festive tales of throwing up at parties and other gastric incidents, and what everyone wanted for Christmas versus the depressing reality of what everyone would probably get.  I want a vintage Rickenbacker.  I will, undoubtedly, get some kind of shaving kit, chocolates, and probably something electronic that I already have, like a Kindle or toothbrush. ***

The following day, groaning on my sofa, I read an article in The Guardian in which a group of ‘experts’ had a similar musical conversation, giving their judgment on popular Christmas tunes.  Fairytale was one of the songs, as you’d expect, and Mariah was there, just to remind us that Christmas and Free Market Capitalism go hand in hand, and there was also the unwelcome appearance of Cliff Richard’s Mistletoe and Whine, to remind us why Christianity and Christmas should be kept very far apart.  Lennon’s Merry Xmas (War is Over) was also there, to make us feel guilty that we’re all running around whinging about not getting Rickenbackers rather than out rescuing orphans and all that worthy shit.

What happened next has shaken my grip on the world and existence itself.  One of the experts is the Professor of Music at some shitty university (Bristol, I think. Not the one I went to. Ergo, a shitty university), and she bitched about Fairytale in a manner that suggested she must have something personal against Shane McGowan, Kirtsy MacColl and the whole of Ireland. I can only suggest Shane nicked her pint once, or she looks like Elvis and used to work in a chip shop.**** She gave the song 0/10, which I, I believe, was a little ungenerous. 

So, a song which many people claim is the best Christmas song ever (although it isn’t) is judged, by an educated elite, to be so poor as to not even register the merit to gain one pitiful mark.  Or, to put it another way, she thinks it is so utterly shite  that the world would be a better place if it had never been recorded.  She must really hate the Irish.

But there’s more.

I can only assume that Bristol University’s Music Department is some sort of Situationist Art Installment, or an elaborate practical joke, because there are literally no other explanations for this: she gave Cliff Ten Out of Ten.  This piss poor excuse for a sentient human, who is responsible for the musical education of future generations, and presunably gets paid for it, not only judges Cliff to better than The Pogues, but deems that this earshite piece of aural cockwash is Perfect. It is the Sine Qua Non of Christmas music; it is flawless, unimprovable and untouchable; the apotheosis of Yuletide tunery. There is nowhere left to go from here.

Of course, she’s talking bollocks. Cliff’s song is without doubt one of the worst products of human endeavour. When I have the misfortune to hear it, I wish our ancestors had never evolved opposable thumbs and tool usage.  Either that or our simian cousins would come down from the trees, rise up in a massed army and singlehandedly destroy every recording of this travesty of music, disembowel Cliff and, while they’re here, set fire to the Bristol University School of Music.

Of course, this is Christmas, and you never get want you want unless you buy it yourself. I’m going back down to  my basement with my Milton Bradley Junior Genetics Kit to continue my attempt to create Supermonkeys. Hope you all have Cliff-free Christmas

*In the 6^th Form common room, 24 quid a head. No free booze. Anyone complaining about Public Sector pensions can Fuck Right Off

       **  Or I’m trying too hard.

      *** If you know me, and you’ve bought anything that falls into this category, don’t worry.   I have eBay.

**** I was going to make a boat joke, but even I have boundaries. 

Legal Note: I'm not really suggesting that this 'person' hates the Irish. Stop writing that email to your lawyers.