Happy new year everyone! Did you watch the fireworks? I did because I stayed in last night as usual.
I really feel that New Year's Eve is an underage teenager's game. Who wants to spend £50 getting into a Wetherspoons and then be barraged around by drunk, tall, teenagers shouting Auld Lang Syne into your face? Ugh, no thank you.
Mr B. and I had a lovely evening by the fire sipping champagne, eating steak and watching TV until I decided it was time to start the dancing and cranked MTV to Vol. 65 (I know - that's pretty wild even for an NYE). As I whirled dangerously near the fire, shouting 'YES George (Michael)! YES', poor Mr B. (who'd had significantly less to drink, spent the latter part of the evening looking disapprovingly up at me from the sofa until at 12.30 he announced he was off to bed, leaving me and the Christmas tree swaying to Dead or Alive's 'You Spin Me Round'. A total NYE success if you ask me. Those teenagers can keep their precious Wetherspoons.
So 2012 was great wasn't it? That's the consensus. Don't we seem notably more sentimental about saying goodbye to 2012 than we have to most of his forefathers? Usually we're like, 'See you later 2001 (booted into the canal) or 'So long 1945, you sucked (pitched over the pier). Splash. But 2012...we're all 'Goodbye my lover, goodbye my friend..' and lovingly releasing it, like a Chinese lantern over a calm sea as we wipe away a tear. But why?
Don't panic - I know why and I'm afraid it's mainly down to two major, national events: The Queen's Diamond Jubilee and the London 2012 Olympic Games.
The Jubilee was essentially the Queen, sailing down the Thames, in the rain as Londoners cheered her on. And the Olympics was sportsmen and women winning medals. On the surface, this sounds pretty rubbish. And some people probably thought it was. But those people missed the point. What was really going on was that these events gave us that elusive, wonderful feeling of 'we're all in this thing together'.
Feeling 'together' usually happens on a smaller scale. You can go to a concert and shout 'YES George!' with a crowd of other people. Or go to a football match and shout at other people across a park. But these are just pockets. It's unusual for the whole nation to climb aboard the Jubilee barge and sing 'Wake Me Up Before You Go Go' together - but in 2012, that is (metaphorically) what happened.
We watched the events on TV, we read about them in the paper, we made snide little jokes from our sofas, we chatted at work, with our friends, wherever - For once, we had something tangible in common other than 1. The endlessly dreary weather or 2. Blaming someone for something. We were a nation, we actually felt like a nation and it was good.
Wasn't it nice to have something else to say to the hairdresser? 'Did you see the Queen on that barge? Did you hear the Duke's in hospital now after all that rain on his head? He should have been wearing a hood. Who's fault was it?' - OK the weather and the finger of blame usually slip in there somehow, but at least it had a memorable context for once. We like to feel together because it spurs us on. In a world of fear where we're defined more by our differences than our similarities, these moments are pure treasure and here's to much more of it.
What will 2013 bring? A scorching summer (PLEASE)? A royal baby? That'll get us going. Let's just hope next NYE is more of the 'Chinese lantern' variety than 'shopping trolley of rubbish in the river'.
Happy new year to all and I hope 2013 is good to us. In the immortal words of beloved George, 'Bad boys, Stick together, Never sad boys'. YES George. Bloody yes.
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