So once again we hit an arbitrary number on an arbitrary calendar.

People will get drunk tonight and party like the clappers.  Balls will drop in Times Square and a madness will descend up on the world like there is no tomorrow,  Except that there is, and that’s why they are celebrating, I presume?

Not that I knock the New Year, but it does amuse me that a day which is effectively no different from any other day is celebrated so much.  If every calendar on the planet were to mysteriously vanish, how would we know when the New Year begins?

There has been much comment on the number of deaths in the past year of musicians and other stage people, to which I callously respond that people have to die sometime.  I notice that no one has ever mentioned the number of great intellects, reformers and entertainers who were born in 2016?  No one gives them a second thought, but all great people were born at some stage in their lives?  I grant that being less than a year old hasn’t given them much chance to climb to the top of the tree yet, but give them time.  Let’s celebrate their lives in advance instead of in retrospect.

New Year’s Resolutions fall into the same category of benign amusement.  If I drop a concrete block on my foot, do I wait until an arbitrary date to resolve not to do it again?  No, I end to do it at the time as it just makes more sense.  Why should I wait until the end of December to improve myself?  Shouldn’t that be a daily rather than an annual task?

Likewise the tradition of wishing people a Happy New Year.  This implies to me that I couldn’t give a shite if people have a miserable time in the last week in December but somehow that then changes at the start of January?  And when exactly does the New Year end?  I meet someone in the second week of January and we give the obligatory New Year greeting, but does this apply in February or March?  Apparently not, so when to we officially stop wishing happiness on our friends?

Tomorrow does have a possible bit of cheer for me.  Gubmints have this snide habit on budget day of hiking taxes from midnight that night, but any crumbs from the table they may decide to throw in our direction don’t come into effect until the following January, so maybe I will see a miniscule improvement in my income?  Unfortunately [and naturally] I have to wait until the end of the month to find out.

All that aside, and in the interests of conformity and tradition I wish all my readers a Happy New Year.

But please note – that doesn’t come into effect until midnight.