New Year's Resolutions

I think most of us at least contemplate making New Year’s Resolutions--something we resolve to do from the moment we wake on New Year’s Day; anything we are doing that night before we wake, such as the hardy-annual “I shall not drink again”, counts as the year before. In fact, most of us save up our resolutions for that moment, defying common sense and sometimes propriety for the simple expedient of creating an anniversary we can remember. How embarrassing and self-emasculating therefore that most resolutions don’t last beyond January, something we’d rather forget.

I made several resolutions this year, but will follow propriety and not reveal what they are; two are already consigned to history, anyway.

The history of the New Year’s Resolutions itself is quite interesting: the tradition goes all the way back to 153 BC. Janus, a mythical king of early Rome, was placed at the head of the calendar and the populace was required to make promises in homage. The fact that Janus was known to be “two-faced” says something for the credibility of most resolutions.

This brings us to George W. Bush.

I asked George if he had made any New Year’s resolutions. “Many,” he replied, among them his intent to finally read War and Peace, once it comes out in books on tape format and when, as he said, he can get his head around “this peace thing”. The President is also committed to having an exit strategy from Iraq—he got the idea from the Donald Rumsfeld affair: it involves getting rid of one war and replacing it with another.

Helen Clark was too busy to receive my calls when I wanted to ask her what her New Year’s resolutions were and her husband Doctor Peter Davis was unable to tell me what his were either—apparently he is still waiting for Helen to tell him and she is yet to return his calls. John Key quipped that his resolution was to get “the key to the door” and then the cheerful cherub displayed his mischievous nature by admitting that was last year’s! This year, he says, is to make editors making plays on his name in headlines—assuming John of course that there are any headlines for you to make.

Tony Blair and Richard Branson have eerily similar resolutions: they intend to swap jobs with each other. John Howard says he would think about it but would get back to me when he finished watching Australia obliterate England in the Ashes Series, the Australian cricket team said the would get back to me as soon as they had obliterated England in the Ashes Series, and the English cricket team said they hadn’t yet had a resolution but, like last year, one could be expected within three days. The New Zealand cricket team said they would be rotating theirs, but didn’t expect to be making many.

Graham Henry says he won’t be making any resolutions, predictions, explanations or comments, and how the hell did I get his number anyway.

Many other politicians, world figures and sportspeople refused, like Helen Clark, to return my call. But one did. To give Saddam Hussein his due (as one does), his simple and brief reply to my questions as to whether he intended to make any New Year’s resolutions was: “You’re kidding, right?”

New Year’s Resolutions? It’s all in the execution, I guess.

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