The countdown's finished, the hangover's subsiding and the heady elation of that easy optimism that accompanies the passing of a year is rapidly dissipating into a clamouring fug of anguish and despair. I'm not seeing the point in New Year's Resolutions any more, as the world will continue to descend into mindless insanity whether I cut down on cigarettes or not.
What with all that this foul year has to offer there's a good cause for stronger drinks, this time last year I attempted to survive a dry January and look where that got us; ISIS, Ebola, institutionalised Paedophilia and Katie Hopkins. This year I resolve to drink solidly through the first month as a personal sacrifice - my gift to you - in a bid to change the outcome of world events, hell if I can stay blind drunk until June maybe we'll have world peace, Tony Blair tarred, feathered and exiled for war crimes and a breakthrough in renewable energy. Sadly though I doubt any of my self-destructive efforts will make the slightest difference to the world's downwards trajectory and sorry to shit in your cereal, but neither will your feeble attempts at self-improvement.
The world cares not if you finally squeeze into your dress, build back that six-pack of yesteryear or learn to cook Tapas, ultimately none of these things will make the slightest bit of difference. In the grand scheme of things it's as futile as shouting at your TV and no doubt you'll be back to doing just that come February once the last candle of hope is extinguished by a ghastly fart from the ass of the world; the reason being we're all as useless and powerless as each other in such trying times.
As such my only New Year's resolution is try to be nicer to people; a task that if undertaken by everyone all at once, might make this tumultuous lump of rock hurtling around an infinite, pointless expanse of space that we call home somewhat more bearable. If nothing else it might stop Londoners kicking one another to death every minute of every morning commute. Already this idealistic resolution has taken a solid kicking in the gonads, watching the news over the last few days has caused my face to contort as though stubbing my toe on a loved one's grave.
Within one week of 2015 being birthed, the world returned to its good old fashioned ways of hatred, slaughter and senseless idiocy, this time with Kalashnikov-toting imbeciles with a limited sense of humour wreaking bloody havoc across France. Happy New Year everyone! So as the police manhunt continues through the night, at the time of writing the news has already become a dizzying barrage depicting the carnage that resembles a hasty remake of the film S.W.A.T with scenes from V for Vendetta spliced in giving the whole nightmarish situation a Hollywood feel to it; like being caught up in a film that you can neither turn off or turn away from. The news once more goes about its business of blurring life so far from the realm of normality that viewers can only watch on in silent, disbelieving rage as the values of free speech are riddled with bullets in the name of unproven superstition.
This might seem a blunt and feckless statement to make on a religion that's followed by nearly a quarter of the world's population, but in my humble (and most likely misguided) opinion, nothing is so sacred that it cannot be laughed at and religious belief is a waste of a perfectly good human. It's up there with money in terms of the power of delusion it holds over people and over the centuries has served to inspire some of the most brutal acts humanity has ever indulged in - something Big Brother can only aspire to.
Speaking of which, another parade of morons will soon be yelling incomprehensible gibberish at one another for control over one of Britain's most infamous houses in a shouting match that will last for a couple of months before retreating into obscurity and scandal. That's right, it's almost election time and as the nation makes its mind up as to whether we want a man who has trouble with sandwiches and pulling even remotely human facial expressions to club a smug, overgrown cherub of a man over the head with a big stick or whether we want to see the incredible human hate-sponge invertebrate tackle the decommissioned Muppet that, having grown tired of living in Elmo's shadow has become a lager-swilling, slander-spitting, plane-crashing degenerate with his vaguely inbred ideologies. It won't really matter who's at the top as we'll all fall off - because by this point the world will have simply refused to spin on its axis any more in light of the sheer imbecility that we're collectively subjecting it to.
If that bleak reality fails to materialise (text SPIN to 623624 now to avoid catastrophe) then most likely our floating prison isle of a nation will have resorted to screeching in disbelief as more insipid ghouls shuffle about our multiple media devices in the form of Celebrity Big Brother which promises to lower the IQ of every viewer by 2 points p/minute. After one episode you'll be little more than a dribbling puddle of human soup and almost twice as qualified as the average UKIP MP. What is true of Big Brother is also true of the elections; the hardest decision for anyone to make is who to punch square in the condescending cake-hole first.
As I've mentioned though, this won't matter and neither will your shitty little resolution to eat better, sleep more, work less, see Venice, drink less, stop smoking, exercise more, spend time with those mewling bundles of flesh that once resided (quietly, oh so quietly!) within your respective testicles and wombs or use that smoothie maker that you so optimistically purchased all those years ago when you had something called hope, which is now just a distant, embittered memory. So put the fucking pine nuts away, trash your yoghurt maker, burn that luminescent cycling spandex and crack out the good stuff! Let's just pick up where we left off on the 1st of January and sally forth in this all encompassing race to the bottom. In light of the way 2015's going can we not just jump ahead to the alcohol infused ending and try again in February when we're not such dicks? Please?