Resolving to Behave Badly

We’re at the start of a new year. If we’d just landed from Mars how would we know?
Well there are 2 good indications that clutter up the media, and I get pretty fed-up reading about either of them.

New Year Resolutions.
That’s the first worn out headline. Usually a whole posse of journalist,‘celebs’ and assorted self -publicists are lined up by the press to tell us what their resolutions for the coming year are going to be. Are we really interested in the navel –gazing of someone who we have never met, and are unlikely to ever be in the same room as?

This year I’m not going to commit myself to any sanctimonious hair shirt- wearing. I’ve never ever been able to stick to any of my high flown ambitions further than the middle of January so after all this time I’ve decided to call it a day and from now on I’m going to spend 2009 behaving badly.

Therefore I resolve to….
Increase my daily alcohol units
Eat more chocolate
Take less exercise
Throw away the bathroom scales in view of the first three resolutions. (Well, I may just hide them for the time being)
Suffer fools less gladly than I did before – if that’s possible.
Spend more time surfing the internet
Spend less time doing the housework
(the last two items are almost impossible to achieve but I will give them my best shot.)

On a more responsible note I do intend to actually complete a novel. By which I mean to work on something that will be presentable enough to send to a publisher and not be chucked onto the slush pile without a second glance. Therefore I will be concentrating on that vitally important introductory letter, and my bête noire, the jaw-dropping-interest-arousing-must-read synopsis.

This is going to make me even more reclusive and anti-social. Hooray! I’m going to be selfish, self obsessed and who knows, successful? Well I’ll settle for a bit of success, like a short story appearing in a magazine, or, joy of joys, a publisher taking a slight interest in one of my novels. It’s not too much to ask. I’m not looking for a five figure deal, a burning desire to make the best seller list, or even the Booker Prize ( although I have just about got my acceptance speech word perfect now), so Joanna Trollope can sleep easy in her bed.

The New Year Health Regime
The other indicator of a new year is the endless references to de-toxing. What? Am I expected to seriously believe that 40 years of internal organ abuse can be resolved in a month by purchasing an expensive detox plan? Would that it were so. In four weeks, according to the advertisers, my liver, kidneys, pancreas, heart (sounds like an abattoir, doesn’t it?) will be cleansed, re-vitalised and restored to those of a teenager. (Well not one who hangs around on street corners smoking spliffs and drinking cans of Iced Diamond one hopes). They’re about as reliable as the miracle claims put out by face cream manufacturers to get rid of wrinkles in seven days.

So I shall not be resolving, detoxing or doing anything remotely good for my health.

And to all my fellow scribes and would- be- published authors I will raise a glass of something at least 12% proof and say ‘May all your hopes and dreams, however large or small, be fulfilled this year, and above all, live your lives exactly as you wish!’

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE.