Amateur night on the town


Mark Steel proposes:

Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve so it’s going to be FUN. Because this is when you’re not only allowed but encouraged to get drunk ….

…. New Year’s Eve is like those boards that local authorities put up for kids to graffiti on, or the chants that baseball fans are directed to sing by stadium announcers. By making these acts official the fun is ruined ….

…. [Y]ou’ve a better chance of having a brilliant time at Christmas and New Year if you ignore the fact it’s Christmas and New Year. Or join a religion that insists the Christians are three days out, then get absolutely smashed on January 4th.

There are a couple of other holidays like this; there is plenty of drinking and revelry on the Fourth of July in the United States, and wasn’t St. Patrick’s Day, 2008, moved to the ides of March to avoid everyone getting drunk on Sunday and being hung over on Monday?

I once asked a friend of mine if he had any plans on St. Patrick’s Day, and he said, “No, not really. Too many amateurs out tonight.”

He has a point.

Continue reading