Well that's a year of my life that I'm not getting back. It ended where it began, at my friend Al's house. Last year there had been a raucous party where we'd burned something from the previous 12 months, this year it was calmer and more grown up with a dinner party. I liked it. And not just because I am getting old. I have never really been that into New Year's Eve as an event, resenting the enforced celebrations at the end of a week where I am usually already sick from over indulgence. I don't like being in the middle of crowds of people, especially when they're drunk and I don't like being stuck in town with no idea of how I am going to get home and I don't like staying up late. I don't even like getting pissed off my face any more. I basically hate all forms of pleasure.
And my girlfriend has this weird thing where she doesn't like me getting off with strangers. So the average New Year party now holds nothing for me.
So this was the perfect way to see in 2012, with fingers crossed that the year would be as good as the film. I had even driven there so that I'd be able to get home easily and have a valid reason not to drink more than a celebratory glass of champagne. I expect you're all lining up to have this party animal at your next shindig.
But I am still good at eating and talking, so there's some stuff going for me. We had some enjoyable conversations. We were listening to the Beatles and I realised that song that was playing was more or less 50 years old now. Did people having dinner parties in the 60s listen to popular music from 1910? It seems unlikely. But it got us talking about what 20th Century famous figures would be remembered in 1000 years time. The Beatles? It's possible I suppose, but unlikely. Hitler was most people's first choice, but perhaps another 10 centuries will have enough incident to make our world wars pale. Even now I suspect most people couldn't name any of the major players in the First World War. Stalin and Mao might make the list, but even now because most of their excesses were directed at their own people they aren't as "celebrated" as Hitler. Someone asked how many historical figures I could name from the 11th Century and I could only come up with about five off the top of my head. He then asked me to name anyone from the 6th Century and even with my History degree (which I didn't work very hard for and which only covered 1066 onwards) I had nothing. Admittedly not too many records survive from those times (though perhaps that should make it easier to name a handful of names as there is very little choice). And of course in 1000 years time civilisations will have risen and others fallen and so there's every chance that the people who are still talked about will come from different cultures entirely (even for whatever people might be living on this particular island).
My girlfriend suggested that a fictional character like Sherlock Holmes might have greater longevity than any actual person, which moved the conversation on to the way fictional figures (and Holmes in particular) get reinvented for a new generation. My girlfriend talked about the BBC series where Sherlock Holmes was accompanied by "Tim from the Office" and I thought that that might actually might make a brilliant series. The character rather than the actor would accompany Holmes on all his adventures, pulling faces into the camera when he wanted to make a point. But Holmes would have to always refer to him as "Tim from the Office" and say stuff like, "Elementary, my dear Tim from the Office." I think it should be the only real difference. But I am going to pitch it to the BBC. They could easily make the series at the same time as the current Sherlock show, with minimal expense. Just any scene he was in would have to be shot twice and he could change his clothes in between and every now and again Ricky Gervais (the person, not the character he played in the Office) could do that funny dance in the background.
The year slipped away without the loss of any more flamboyant and dangerous world leaders. I found myself looking forward rather than backward now and wondering what changes 2012 will bring - don't worry about the Mayan Calendar, as I informed the other guests December 21st is simply the day that the calendar goes to the next b'ak'tun, a day of huge celebration in Mayan culture (and I got that info out of my brain and certainly did not read it on wikipedia). Personally speaking it's a year that is ripe for all kind of new possibilities. Will I still be blogging this time next year to analyse what they've been? Who knows? And who wants to know? Let's not ruin the story by getting the ending in advance. Let's just start with a clean slate and see how long we can go before we fuck it all up!
Happy New Year readers. Hope 2012 will be amazing for you all, though of course statistically that is impossible.
