So that’s it. 2014 is here and with it tons of predictions, hopes, fears and general pondering on what this year may bring, all while reflecting on the last 365 days of happenings. What went wrong, what went right, who died, who nearly died, why oh why isn’t Jeremy Clarkson dead etc etc. I’m very certain it’s an age thing, but I find it very hard not to just see today as ‘another day’. I’m not some sort of Dawkins-esque misery guts who’s decided that because time is a concept that celebrating its passing is pointless or that love is just a chemical reaction or that fun is dead or why don’t why all just lie in a puddle and wait to die. Far from it. I think it’s just I have, in recent years, got a tad bored with getting all excited about the bog standard dates to jump up and down about.
I mean look at New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day. What’s to actually get excited about? January? Apart from it being the month of my birth (which is as important as a national celebration) it’s a drab, wet, horrible month. Christmas is over and now we sink into 31 days of miserable darkness without any Christmas lights to make it nicer. If anything the Chinese New Year makes sense, because it happens as January ends, giving everyone a reason to be pleased that sunshine is coming back (supposedly), the rickets may now disappear and everyone will stop looking slightly like the undead, if you can see them at all for layers of clothes. New Year says ‘Hey look! You’ve done with hibernation, now fuck off back to work!’
I don’t begrudge people for going out and celebrating it though. Yes, I may have grumbled something about ‘the fucking idiots out in the rain’ as me and my girlfriend sat in the warmth on the sofa watching the fireworks last night. This constant feeling of cynicism overwhelming me that no matter how pretty those lights about the Millennium Eye were I can’t help but feel Boris Johnson will make a speech soon about ‘well we had to cut another 20 firestations to pay for the NYE display.’ I think it may all just be that I don’t have a job with a normal timetable so it doesn’t have much bearing on my life. In previous years the Edinburgh Festival has always felt like the end of a year, beginning of a new one. Now that I shun the Fringe in favour of not throwing thousands of pounds away, I use various bits of work to keep me happy. My next celebratory time will come when March has ended after three months of touring two different shows, gigging abroad, writing a television proposal and draft script and probably playing and winning Lego Marvel Superheroes on the Xbox (priorities). Then again I realise that co-ordinating everyone to celebrate and have fireworks every time I feel like I’ve hit a new milestone will probably be hard to organise, or drum up enough support for. At the same time, if its just me I’ll probably have a better time anyway and be able to use transport without queuing and find the toilets easily.
It could just be that I feel like this because its a particularly rainy day first day of the year. It could also be because, by having slept in more than I intended, it’s unlikely I’ll get much done of any use to anyone in particular. So maybe I’ll start my new year on a slightly more productive note in a day or two. Start as you mean to go they say.
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I’m doing my first ever UK tour in 2014, starting end of January. All dates and most ticket links are up at my website: https://www.tiernandouieb.co.uk. Please spread the word and come along as if you’re not there, it’ll be rubbish. It’ll just be me in a room and if I can’t get 3G I’ll be really bored. The very funny Chris Coltrane is supporting me on some dates and the brilliant Keith Farnan is doing a double header with me on others.
