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I'd like to wish my fan a very happy new year.
So long 2025. In a time when each year has been worse than the last, I think you did a reasonable job of being only slightly worse than 2024, a sort of place holder or breather before shit really turns dark in 2026.
1914-1918, 1939-1945, 2026-2026.
There's my little Nostradamus prediction for the history books (if any). But let's not bring the end of year celebrations down with the talk of World War III. It might be a good thing. If we all fight together then we the country might become united and there's every chance that fighting alongside our neighbours will also re-unite the EU countries. Possibly under the leadership of Russia. But you can't have everything.
Anyway, we're probably in a simulation so nothing really matters. And even if we're not, nothing really matters. Not in the grand scheme of things.
But it's not the job of this blog to look at the grand scheme of things. Quite the opposite. It's to look at the very limited tiny scheme of things very much from my solipsistic perspective.
Today is remarkable for me in that just before midnight marked five years since my last (deliberate) alcoholic drink. I think that's 1826 days. Is it time to have a drink? Or should I do the experiment properly and remain drunk for every minute of the next five years to work out which is best for me?
I was never going to drink tonight, or the early minutes of the new year though, mainly because I was the designated driver. Plus I've done the last seven dry Januarys (at least - though I did break early in 2020 and
had a drink on the 31st January) so I am not sure I want to break that run.
It's slightly odd because I didn't really intend to give up drinking forever when I decided to stop on New Year's Eve 2020. I had just got a bit sick of the hangovers and the waking up in the middle of the night full of panic and confusion. It then turned into a strange year where a few days later I woke up missing a testicle. I don't know if the two things are connected.
I haven't massively missed it, though every now and again think it might be nice to have a small whisky of an evening (though I think the small whisky of an evening might have been the cause of the waking up in panic and confusion). It might be interesting to see. But maybe I should get to 2000 days first. And if I do 2000 days then I might as well aim for 10 years. And then 5000 days.
Or do I allow myself a Purge day of drinking (if I drink everything it might be messier than the actual purge or at least I might have to purge myself)? If I was anyone else I would absolutely just have a drink one day to see if I like it any more. But I am not anyone else. I am me. And if I have learned anything about myself in my ultra self-examined life (and I am not sure that I have or at least I continue to make the same errors regardless), it's that if I open the door a crack then it's game over.
If the four minute warning comes this year then I am spending four minutes drinking whisky whilst hugging my kids.
Anyway like all the other clueless idiots we enjoyed the final New Year's Eve before the coming storm, utterly oblvious to what the next few months would bring.
Just like all the clueless idiots throughout the whole of human history.
But with nicer snacks.
