Happy New Year!

Humans do the darnest things. However, one thing they do in particular never ceases to leave me with a feeling of utter incredulity. Once a year, human beings all over the planet gather to revel in the completion of our planet's orbit around the sun. For some inane reason humanity has placed a significant attachment on a wholly natural and arbitrary event. So much so that some of our fellow man take it upon themselves to artificially inflate their prices in the name of such festivities. It is this insanity coupled with the inevitability of being jostled about in crowds like a heard of cattle which has often lead me to shy away from the evening of the 31st of December.

For all its frenzied insanity however, the firework displays in capital cities around the world do happen to be nothing short of magnificent. Fortunately for me, London happens to be one of the best when it comes to firing rockets packed with gunpowder into the air. Having lived here all my life, it is nothing short of a travesty that I have yet to see the display live. This year however I thought 'why not?' So off I went. Unfortunately, despite leaving my watering whole with an hour to spare, I did not make it to South Bank in time for the display. This was in large part due to the sodding police cordoning off all access points to the River Thames and funneling people down the Strand to a designated viewpoint. Walking some 45mins and not getting anywhere, my party and I decided enough was enough and perched ourselves on a street corner like the delinquents we are. Wishing each other a happy new year, we observed the sheeple desperately attempting to get to the mythical vantage point the LED signs were directing everyone toward. It would not surprise me to learn if the entire route was just one giant practical joke, sending everyone in a giant circle round London to piss on everybody's parade, given the ridiculousness of cutting off the access points to the river bank.

So, seeing a dim red hue in the sky and hearing the faint sound of explosions, off I trundled to McDonalds for a McChicken Legend. I would post a video capturing my own personal experience and the essence of my evening, but it would be unwise to do so as it features me doing/saying unsavoury things which future employers, if they ever found this blog, may frown upon...