ANOTHER NEW YEAR

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 1, 2 January 1936, Page 11

ANOTHER NEW YEAR

FALLACY EXPLODED

INSINCERITY ABROAD

WHY NOT FACE FACTS ?

( By F.M.G.C.*)

'•Tin- lime lus come." the W.ilnii f.iicl. "to talk ot many ililncs: of Christ.mastirle's futility, and what the New Year brings . . ."

The whole of this New Year business is a fallacy. The old year stops on December 31 only to give tailors another

excuse for sending out accounts. Nobody thinks of wishing anybody a happy March or a prosperous October —and why? Primarily because he doesn't mean it, and again because il is just, the start of another gloomy month. In the street, in the train, in the sun, in the rain; your enemies proffer the hackneyed refrain—"Happy New Year."

One can't avoid them; il is like dodging Irishmen in the American police force. That smirking insincerity as they glibly chirrup platitudes: that clammy clasp as they ruin the balance of your tennis arm. If everybody would be practical and shout (derivation dubious: see "miracle") a jjrink, one might be tempted to uncrease the brow and accord the old year a Viking's funeral. The eyes might feelingly assume that drenched lavender look at the thought of not having another drink for twelve months.

There is nothing about, a new year that can justify celebration. One is too conscious of increasing age. and teadrinkers who twitter, "Hasn't the year simply flown, my dear," simply throw more sand hi the canary's feed. The waistline, perhaps, demands an apprehensive gaze; the sprint for the morning tram lacks the verve and snap of a year ago; the depressing round of giving presents to lethal relations who insist that natal disasters be commemorated starts all over again; rent and rates have to be paid again, and a final demand sneaks into the letterbox. Celebrating this mess is as understandable as Max Baer pleading for a fifth round with Joe Louis.

Which brings one to a movement that is rapidly gaining in enthusiastic membership—the Gloom Circle. The regulations are rigid, but tho rewards alluring. One who has not been seen to smile for three consecutive months, except at murders and fatal accidents, qualifies for a presentation copy of "Suicide Made Easy," bound in limp leather; the newcomer, who has yet to graduate to a fully-fledged Gloom Germ, is made to feel at home immediately with "Morgues I Have Seen—or Love Lies Bleeding," a sweet work, charmingly illustrated; and the Gloat Club, the members of which gloat on alternate Thursdays over the prospect of lower wages and increased taxation, holds an extension night on the first Sunday in each month, except when it clashes with the anniversary of a day in June, 1931, when the 10 per cent, cut came into force. On that day the annual picnic is held. There are just fourteen more corners to be turned before the country is out of the wood, and then there is a flooded river to cross.

Diaries and resolutions will be kept for short periods at a time. Resolutions were invented to show people just how lacking they are in moral fibre, and diaries were popularised by somebody named Pepys because he didn't know any better. Can you imagine it: "Left comfortable bed at 4 a.m. ; to find, good woman had, left cat locked in, cat showing characteristic lack of appreciation of finer points of good conduct. Both animal and myself put out. Returned bed 4.13 a.m." Balderdash!

The year promises to be one of international strife, war in the East, famine in Manchuria, earthquakes in India, and football in New Zealand.

"Happy New Year!" Thanks to the obtrusion of Leap Year—another silly custom—there are only 364 days (with special times set aside for ruination of crops and sundry epidemics) to go. ' C*"F.M.G.C": Foundation Member, Gloom Circle."!