Red Lamé

2023, eh?  That happened.  The last quarter of it decided to be the Moriarty to my Holmes and tried to rugby tackle me over the Reichenbach Falls.  The joke’s on 2023, it’s dead at midnight and I’m (hopefully) not.  ‘

We’re staying in.  I’m not physically or temperamentally disposed to wander far tonight.  The weather seems to be set to shit.  I got damp enough just putting the bins out earlier.  Dampest New Year I can remember since the Millenium.  That was a quagmire.  I spent more of New Year 1999 drip-drying over the pub buffet than carousing. 

And I turned up in the same red lamé shirt as my friend Matthew, which was annoying.  Mine was clinging, damp, to my not inconsiderable chest.  His wasn’t.  To his chest, I mean.  Nor mine.  I should clarify: his red lamé shirt wasn’t damp or clinging to anyone’s chest on New Year’s Eve 1999.  Not to my knowledge, anyway. 

I can honestly say I’m not wearing a scrap of red lamé as I type.  My red lamé days are behind me.  In total I think I’ve only had two red lamé days and they were Friday 31^st December 1999 and Saturday 1^st July 2000 inclusive.  If I wore red lamé right now I’d look like a Christmas bauble.  I’m currently dressed down on the sofa.  I look like a heap of dirty washing.

Yes, you’re right: Caroline is a very lucky woman.

The plan for tonight is this: a few bottle of Fizz, a nice supper (lamb with caponata followed by brioche bread and butter pudding) and to have lapsed into a vegetive state by the time Rick Astley is on the telly. 

I will try to be awake at midnight.  Just to make sure 2023 leaves the fucking building.  To escort it out over the threshold and make sure it knows it’s barred.

To the rest of you who aren’t calendar years that can be divided by 1, 7, 17, 119, 289, it is my pleasure to wish you a happy new year.  May it massage you like warm towels, cosset you like an army of servants and tick every metaphorical box imaginable. 

And if it doesn’t then: back straight, teeth and tits proud and keep buggering on.

Love Ben. x