A certain resolve

In here

Have you noticed that things always go wrong at New Year? Maybe it's the fact that it's such an emotionally-charged time, or maybe it's the Lord of Misrule, but New Year's Eve is always a bit of a fiasco. I've spent every New Year since I can remember either feeling sorry for myself because I didn't have a boyfriend or wishing I didn't have a boyfriend because he cramped my style at midnight. Boyfriends are like that: they're either not there at all, or you turn round and they're snogging your worst enemy, who's wearing pink Lycra and looks like a condom.

This New Year I plan to spend safely at home, which means that I will either change my mind at the last minute and spend my life savings on a cab to stand around in a room full of rowing couples, or there will be riots in my street and the entire terrace will burn down. Both of which options are better than being in Cornwall. I know that for a fact.

The Cornish New Year happened a couple of years ago. It seemed like a good idea at the time: 17 people, a week in a clifftop castle, a man to do the cooking and a sea of good wine. Dancing till dawn, bracing walks along the seashore, vicious gambling in front of log fires all seemed like the best possible solution to the annual crisis.

Except that the Piskies were out to get us. Plus the castle wasn't really a castle, but a Martello tower into which French prisoners of war had been jemmied after their prison hulks had sunk, so it was, naturally cursed. And though the food was delicious, the man who cooked it was a former denizen of the catering corps. Three courses every night, each one containing cream, washed down by a couple of bottles of Burgundy each, made neither for happy livers nor functional heads.

By night three, most people had post-traumatic stress disorder. It was the one New Year when I was really glad I didn't have a boyfriend, as every relationship in the building was swelling up and going bang. Within five minutes of arriving, I was attacked for destroying the monarchy because I worked in the media. As I was a crossword editor at the time, this seemed a bit unjust. Meanwhile, flurries of phone calls superheated the phone lines as those whose boyfriends hadn't come with them discovered what the boyfriends were really up to.

New Year's Eve arrived and suicide loomed. Half of us were in tears and the other half were in tears because we were so worried about the ones who were in tears. Someone did actually fling himself off a cliff, although it's possible that he just slipped because he was drunk and wandering around the gardens half-naked with a bottle of sherry at the time. He landed in a bramble bush about five feet down. He reappeared, wildly hypothermic, covered in blood and broken glass, at four in the morning, having spent an hour struggling back to terra firma. No one had noticed he was missing.

By that time, the only people still awake were Brian and me anyway; we were talking about how nice it was to be single and comparing the Dolly Parton and Whitney Houston versions or "I-y-I-y-I Will Always Lurve You- hoo-hoo-oo-oo oo''. Bramble bush staggered bedwards and we two kept going until dawn shed its steely light on the old fag butts and spilled wineglasses, revelling in the peace and quiet and not noticing that we had the record player at full volume. We were sick as dogs the following afternoon and no one would speak to us. I haven't been able to listen to either version to this day.

This time I would really like to see the birth of the year without a screaming hangover. London is lovely on New Year's Day, as the streets are devoid of people and full of the remains of old party poppers. I shall go for a walk and consider my resolutions. Firstly, I will wash up everything within three days of eating from it. I got this down to a week in 1995 and now I'm going for the big one. Also, I swear I won't fill any foreign dignitaries in on the plot developments of Coronation Street without finding out who they are first. Well, how was I to know he was the duke of something or other? He looked like a Spanish car salesman to me, what with the moustache and everything.

But most of all, I won't start 1996 with chilblains. Those nights spent barefoot on sheet-ice looking for cabs because my shoes hurt and I can no longer balance on them have finally taken their toll. I'm not going to do it any more. Of course, if I had a boyfriend I could make him drive me everywhere, or at least send him out to find me a cab. And I'd have someone to snog. And I wouldn't end up bonding with my worst enemy, because there is no one else to talk to. But of course it's New Year and I haven't