Reasons I Get Grumpy About New Year
- Mid-winter is a bloody stupid time for a new year celebration. This isn't a time of new beginnings, it's a time of huddling around snuffling, wishing it wasn't so bloody cold, and cheering yourself up with the odd bit of carousing.
- It's all the more stupid when you consider that by and large we adopted the Roman names for months, even though they obviously count from March* - around the time of the Spring Equinox, a very sensible time to celebrate the coming of the new. So our year ends after the twelfth month, 'Month Ten'.
- The date was originally fixed to coincide with the Winter Solstice, as was Christmas*, but because humans hadn't got the hang of calendars yet, they ended up getting spread out. So we have three celebrations over the course of about a week and a half, if you bother celebrating the actual solstice.
- I've been around too many people on coke at New Year. It's been a while now, but all that time crammed in tight spaces with folks under the influence of Magical Dickhead Powder still colours my perception of the whole thing. Not that people thoroughly pissed up on champagne are all that much better.
- I've got the flu.
- Moan moan moan.
Happy New Year everybody!!!
*at least I think that's how this worked out. Don't expect me to check my facts when I've got a temperature of 101.