Let’s not beat about the bush. New Year’s Eve is shit. Christmas I can get behind – food, presents, sloth – what’s not to like? But celebrating the date going from the 31st to the 1st does not warrant queuing six deep at a bar full of fannies sloshing Jagermeister into my eyeballs. If I could be guaranteed that throughout the whole of 2011 I will be served caviar by a golden unicorn which expels Faberge eggs out of its bejewelled back passage – then maybe, just MAYBE – I will spend 3 hours in a taxi queue as some brainless ballbag vomits vodka Red Bull all over my back.
But that never happens, does it? There’s no unicorn. There’s no caviar. The next day, nothing has changed, and you are a disgusting mess. Look at you. You tried to shag the Christmas tree. You look like a cross between Eric Pickles and a melted Cabbage Patch doll. It’s 2011, and your tiny, booze shrivelled brain can’t even comprehend the Brian Conley Christmas Special. Here are 5 compelling reasons to give NYE a miss…
1. The Tyranny of Town
Going into town on New Year’s Eve and expecting to have a good time is like going to a Basshunter gig and expecting to encounter a room full of scholars discussing symbolism in late Victorian literature. Every town and city in Britain turns into a hellish Yates’ Wine Lodge of doom – the streets are a Hogarthian stinkfest of bad booze, goosebumpy boobs, crap Superdry shirts and rampant chlamydia. Conversations you may overhear include: ‘WHOOAGH, TITS’, ‘BLLAAAAGH’ and the classic ‘HAPPY NEW YEAR’ (followed by a depressing grope and instant herpes).
2. Getting Home
Once you’re in town, you can’t escape. It’s drunk twat lockdown, like being trapped in a massive full-scale metropolitan version of Take Me Out. If you want to get out of there this side of Easter, you have to join the snaking Armageddon that is the taxi/night bus queue. Just like you, all these knob ends thought it was a good idea to pay £100 to get into crap club called Bonkerz, and just like you they must be punished. Remember, when you do get picked up (at about 5am) your driver will assess you for cab suitability and alcohol levels. If you are wearing a vest, eating a kebab and have a rapidly growing wee stain on your crotch, you may find yourself walking home in minus 10 temperatures, and you will die.
No matter what the song, whether it’s a plaintive folk ballad or the National Anthem of Swaziland, Jools will be there, liberally lacing it with mindless tinkling jazz wankery, like putting ketchup on a salad. Prick.
3. False Optimism
You know what? This year’s going to be YOUR year. It’s going to be BRILLIANT. You can just put all the disappointments, near misses, embarrassing moments, divorces, bereavements, dead plants, burnt dinners and regrettable encounters of last year aside and go forth into an amazing new phase of your life. As soon as Big Ben strikes 12 you will start to magically transform into the Super You, and you will finally get your own show on Channel 4/get over that bastard/land a new job in Australia/win the lottery/lose two stone/learn to dance/become a ninja. Yes, 2011 is going to be the best year EVER! Whoo!! (Will it fuck).
4. It’s Not Christmas Anymore
Do you remember Christmas? The twinkling lights, the sparkling baubles, the piles of untouched presents under the tree? By the time New Year’s Eve comes around, all that’s left is a pile of Ferrero Rocher wrappers and a bloated liver you could draw a face on and introduce as your cousin. The last thing anyone feels like doing is adding even more booze to the equation, yet here you are in Trafalgar Square, knocking back a bottle of White Lightning and snogging someone dressed up as a chicken. New Year’s Eve is the last death rattle of the fun festive season, and then what’s next? Taking the Christmas tree down. Debt consolidation at 2459% APR. Soup made out of cardboard boxes and puddles.
5. Jools Holland’s Hootenanny
On New Year’s Eve, music’s most odious penises gather together at the BBC and torture the general public with their ‘jams’. Marvel as Sting sings ‘Let it Be’ with the Goombay Dance Band while Lenny Henry plays the spoons. Oh look, there’s Ray Winstone and Tom Jones dancing to Sex Bomb with Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Beverley Knight! And ‘Who’s’ this in the audience? – why it’s a totally pissed David Tennant, tapping his funky Converse to those crazy beats! And then of course, there’s Jools, indiscriminately dropping doo-wop shit bombs all over everything. No matter what the song, whether it’s a plaintive folk ballad or the National Anthem of Swaziland, Jools will be there, liberally lacing it with mindless tinkling jazz wankery, like putting ketchup on a salad. Prick.
So my NYE advice is: do not go out. Turn off the telly, put your head under the duvet, ignore the bells and the fireworks and the wellwishers. Stay there eating leftover pork pies and Lindors until February and then emerge triumphantly, just in time for Pancake Day when you can legitimately stuff your fat face again. Until then, Happy New Year. It’ll probably be sort of the same as the last one.
