In with the new ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On New Year's Eve, in days gone by, there'd only be one thing on my mind as I drove into work that morning. Was it a revue of the year just gone? Or my resolutions for the next? Hell no, I'd be wondering where I was going to be when the clock struck twelve. At home, alone? (Sod that!) In a Manchester nightclub, for which I'd have had to buy a ticket at some outrageous mark-up and spend a fortune on a taxi home (if I could find one)? Or at a house party in some far-flung corner of either Manchester or Warrington, almost impossible to reach as the night buses went onto limited service?..

Well, nine times out of ten it would have been the house-party. The journalists I worked with were always good at throwing a bash, and so a night in a crowded pub and a race back in time to bring in the New Year was my general mode of celebration. They must have been good nights, because I can't remember any of them. All I know is that I'd get home about ten the next morning and, in what became a tradition, throw U2's 'New Year's Day' on my turntable as the first record of the year. Forty years on, I think I'll just play the record! I hope you have a great night, and I'll catch you in the new year ..