For the first time since I don’t know when we have no plans for New Years Eve. We’re too old to hit the bars in town, and no friend has stepped up to host a party (and I wasn’t about to volunteer). We’ll stay up for the bells to make sure 2016 is firmly nailed to its coffin and probably be in bed less than half an hour later.
All this is a far cry from the past when the old year has been seen out through a haze of booze, hugs and singing. But one of the reasons I have always preferred Hogmanay to Christmas is that it is voluntary; if you prefer to opt out no one will accuse you of being a Scrooge, so a quiet, through probably slightly drunken*, night in it is.
How about you? Wild partying or slippers an cocoa long before the fireworks go off? Best wishes for 2017 however you mark its coming.
* an added bonus of not having plans later is that we’re sipping Campari and prosecco right now.
Twang says
Chez us Christmas is for family and New Year is for friends, and this year we are going just down the road to some pals with two boys, one a year younger and the other a year older than Twang Jr (perfect, in other words). It’ll good grub, nattering, possibly getting thrashed at Junior Triv by the boys, mate Bob’s vast record collection, lots of bubbly then tottering home shortly after midnight.
There’s no reason why tomorrow should be remotely different to today, but these things are symbolic and I’m looking forward to seeing the back of 2016 and hope 2017 confounds my expectations and turns out to be a good year. it’s certainly going to be interesting, that’s for sure.
count jim moriarty says
Normal Saturday night for me. Match Of The Day with a nice glass or two of red, then up the wooden stairs to Bedfordshire. I think I can just about resist the temptation of Jools’s tired old Hootenanny. It will take half an hour to watch it on the iPlayer later.
Locust says
I stopped going out on New Years Eve many years ago, my tolerance of drunk people has become almost non-existing. I used to have people over, but during the last ten or fifteen years I’ve had to work either on NYE or the day after, so that ended as well.
This year I have today off, but go to work tomorrow, so I’m just going to make some good food for myself, watch a film or two and call my mum as per tradition to clink our glasses over the line.
I’ve cooked mushrooms and crab in cream (separately) that I’ll put in grilled cheese sandwiches tonight and eat with a salad. Bottle of bubbly chilling in the fridge. That’ll do me!
niallb says
I am 60 and I think I’ve only been out on NYE about 3 or 4 times in my entire life. We’ll have a wonderful salt-baked trout and roasted veg with new spuds, and a bottle of fine Sancerre. Then a DVD (probably the new Star Trek) and then I might dip into Graham Norton. Mrs. B is normally asleep by 11pm but she says that, because we’ve had such a crap year, she’s determined to stay up to bang the final nail into the coffin of 2016. We’ll see if the bottle of Cremant d’Alsace, the Sancerre and then a bottle of Perrier Jouet Champagne might have a say in the matter!
Much love and good wishes to everyone. I am trying not to be fearful for the world in 2017 but, on a purely personal note, this has been the worst year, health wise, of my life. So, whatever 2017 brings, it can only be better than this one.
minibreakfast says
“Then I might dip into Graham Norton”. Good work there Niall!
salwarpe says
As I read Niall’s comment, I did wonder what I might find below. Good to know I wasn’t disappointed. Keep up the good work, mini!
niallb says
Ha! NYE update: 12.30 and Jan is still awake. Graham was not only dipped but fully examined. We gave Robbie 2 songs, bored us stupid, so put on Queen & Adam Lambert from 2014 (Jan is such an AL fan that it has been saved for 3 years!) Halfway through the Perrier Jouet. HNY everyone x
Gary says
Like many above, I don’t do NYE. It’s something of a curmudgeon’s cliche, but all that forced jollity is not appealing. Film and usual bedtime.
Phil Pirrip says
Happy Hogmanay. We’re staying with Mrs Phil’s mum in Lancashire where the days of hijinx are long gone. As a result we will be spending the evening having a meal at home with three sprightly octogenerians. Somehow I don’t think it will be a late night.
LesterTheNightfly says
Having a night in.
Used to love NYE but now I honestly can’t be arsed,nor can Mrs Nightfly.
So,going to watch the Pete And Dud Unearthed show at 8 on Channel 4.
Then up to the “groove room” at 9 with a 6 pack and see the New Year in listening to sounds.
Happy 2017 fellow Afterworders!!!!
Lando Cakes says
Yes, Hogmanay forced jollity grates like a mediocre band getting the audience to sing/clap along (thought for the day: are Kaiser Chiefs the new Lindisfarne?). It is not for me.
This was one of the many things where the late Mrs Cakes and I were happy to be different from the rest of the world. Naturally, I miss her more than ever today.
Roll on 2017. Happily, Edinburgh is putting on free entertainment for New Year’s Day. Scot:lands is an afternoon of random arts events and is fab, so looking forward to that: https://edinburghshogmanay.com/events/scotlands
niallb says
I was only thinking of the two of you today. Have as good a night as you can. See you on the last day of March?
Lando Cakes says
Yes, looking forward to it!
Phil Pirrip says
Raising a glass of hope to you.
Lando Cakes says
Thanks, Phil – and I to you. As it turned out, I had an unexpectedly nice night with my sibs. Something we’d never done before but arranged last minute.
davebigpicture says
We’re going to friends but if it was up to me I’d stay in. My daughter’s not best pleased at being dragged out either. My son is going to his girlfriend’s house.
Wishing you all a better 2017.
Mike_H says
New Year’s Eve pubbing/clubbing is no longer for me. I’ll be remaining at home and sinking several gin & tonics. The last of the Xmas beer will be gone within the next hour, I imagine. May watch some telly, if I can find anything good. There will be loads of fireworks going off outside, no doubt.
I’ll be still up, reading, at the magic hour, as my normal bedtime is about 1am these days. I may open that bottle of Prosecco that didn’t get consumed on Xmas day and get properly hammered, if I’m still in the mood.
Wishing every last one of you and all of yours a happy and solvent 2017 with no major dramas.
Friar says
I think by the time you’re 35+ it really stops being a thing, dunnit? For years now I’ve felt so poisoned by overindulgence by the time NYE rolls around that I’m dying for some steamed broccoli and a week of meditation punctuated by occasional broth. However I’m with The Fucking In-Laws so I’ll stay up til 12, drink a glass of fizzy tartaric acid labelled Cava and be in bed by 12:02.
I love Christmas. I simply can’t be arsed with NY parties.
Moose the Mooche says
“Poisoned by overindulgence” – Afterword t-shirt #934
Friar says
“Occasional broth” might work too.
niallb says
Perhaps, even, TMFTL?
hubert rawlinson says
Should have been in London tonight. However my wife was taken in to hospital boxing day, back home yesterday so we are staying at home now.
Just pleased she’s home and better.
Hopefully 2017 will be a better year, but I said the same last year.
Much happiness to all.
Rigid Digit says
I concur with Friar’s 35+ statement.
Used to go out every New Year – in the end it was just descending on the same house, same faces, same music, same drunken arguments every year.
I sat there on the last visit and just read a book whilst all around me was chaos.
About 3 or 4 years ago, we decided what is so wrong with a quiet NYE – so that is what we had and it was brilliant – no drunken argument, no shouting just a quiet nigh in with the TV and me building a plastic Haynes Combustion Engine.
Last year was step-daughters 21st, so it was a sort of open house party – not a great experience, the same arguments, same drunkenness, same faces and one escaped dog later I vowed “never again”.
We’re staying in with beer, TV and a veritable smorgasboard of Spanish Meats, Olives, Cheese and nibbles (the days of the Iceland Prawn Ring and Primula sandwiches are gone (thankfully!))
Moose the Mooche says
The first NYE for about 20 years that I’m not going to be forced to sit through the bloody Hootenanny – so it’s already a happy new year for me.
Friar says
What, and miss Alt-J covering You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman/Supper’s Ready (medley) featuring Jools on boogie-woogie piano and inevitably, Tom Jones?
Bartleby says
So you’re expecting it to be a good year then?
Mike_H says
Fuck these optimists. And the horses they rode in on.
My advice? Get slaughtered and pass out.
Early.
ruff-diamond says
not to mention KT Tunstall’s thousandth performance of black horse and the cherry tree…
Bartleby says
Ooh yes please. Perhaps she could be joined by Paul Weller for another earnest and joyless 60s cover version.
Friar says
Perhaps Beverley Knight doing a Beatles song. Or in a pinch, Michelle Gayle, who will then be joined by Ian Beale and Todd Carty for an at-the-piano Just Say No.
Bartleby says
Now you’re talking. Perhaps Adrian Edmondson, Dawn French and television’s Mr Roland Rivron could be persuaded to share with us their Yuletide wisdom and comedy predictions for the year ahead.
Mike_H says
Hoping for the worst, I see.
Sewer Robot says
Hah! You forgot about the ten minute promo for the Rhythm & Blues Orchestra (touring, tickets available!) before you even got to that stuff.
It seems Jooolz has taken a side in the People’s Front Of UB40/UB40 People’s Front civil war…
Twang says
The unfortunate juxtaposition of the words Roland and Rivron.
Bartleby says
And lo it came to pass. Plus another totally unexpected big band rendition of “It’s Later Than You Think”. Jools, you spoil us!
Bartleby says
QNI for me and the girlfriend, playing Qwerkle, binge watching Xmas DVDs (did Man Down last night – pretty good) and hoping against hope that Jools isn’t shite…
pencilsqueezer says
Busy painting away the remaining hours of this crappy year.
Happy New Year to you all.
deramdaze says
I’m not sure me and my mates ever had a truly great NYE, I’ve got fonder memories of Xmas Eve.
Anyway, today was/is full Cornish (it’s English, they just call it Cornish) breakfast, The Pirates beating Nottingham, hearing the scores on the radio in the afternoon, listening to Planxty (recorded in 1972, Colin will know, nurse! nurse!) while making a pasta meal, drinking wine and, then, erm, fireworks in the village. Then Champagne.
I just hope it doesn’t all end up like “The Wicker Man.”
Fintinlimbim says
For reasons I’ve bored you rigid with already, we’ll be glad to see the back of this year. Spending the evening quietly with family at the sister in law’s in the quiet hinterland between Carlisle and Penrith. Aga baked meat and potato pie washed down with Asda’s excellent four for a fiver bottled ale deal. A very Happy New Year to one and all!
bungliemutt says
Living the dream this New Year’s Eve. Bought some new cushions for the living room. Had a cheese and mulled wine supper. In bed by 10.00 probably, with a good book. Woken up at midnight by fireworks, no doubt. Happy 2017 to one and all.
minibreakfast says
I’m continuing to dig into the Isleys house brick from Mr B. It’s marvellous. I might have a Ferrero Rocher and a cup of tea later, and watch a bit of Harry Potter before going to bed at the usual time. I’m 42, you know.
Happy wotsit, all.
Moose the Mooche says
Thought House Brick was the Commodores… have I got that right?
Happy new year Minxie… x
minibreakfast says
I actually had TWO Ferrero Rochers, AND stayed up to watch the whole of Harry Potter. I is a party animal innit.
Moose the Mooche says
Watch the whole of Harry Potter do what?
(12 hours into 2017 I’ve already gone too far)
minibreakfast says
*throws empty FR wrappers at Moose*
Moose the Mooche says
You’re really spoiling me!
mikethep says
Happy New Year from the future to all! I can report that it’s already 26/feels like 33 and 83% humidity at 7 am so 2017 is shaping up to be a hot one.
We celebrated, if that’s the word, by watching Jim Jarmusch’s delirious Only Lovers Left Alive, after which a dram was taken and we went to bed, to be woken up at midnight by the city fireworks.
When I lived behind Ally Pally we used to like staggering up the hill, bottle in hand, to watch the fireworks and enjoy random encounters with friends. But that was then.
Mike_H says
Here’s somebody I discovered this year that I should have discovered before, with the right sentiment for tonight. And some other stuff.
Liane Carroll is the finest singer I’ve heard in ages. And she’s a bloody good piano player too.
—JAZZ ALERT— Haterz need not bother.
(Here’s To Life)
retropath2 says
A certain ironic pleasure in going to bed between 11 and 12. Later than usual, without all the compulsory shite. Nearly as good as the new year celebrated in a taxi leaving the penned-in hell of Edinburgh’s Hogmanay Cattle enclosure.
Have a bonny 2017, just don’t fecking text me at midnight……
Johnny Concheroo says
Even as Sky News’ Kay Burley was yelling, with startling insincerity, “Welcome to the banks of the Thames, we are having a SENSATIONAL time here”, news was breaking of yet another Islamic terrorist attack, This time in an Istanbul nightclub
Welcome to the future.
Mike_H says
There will be more in 2017, just as there will be, in the west, more attacks on headscarf-wearing women and on mosques.
I’m an ex-Catholic non-believer who still thinks people in general are OK and still believes that spirit is nothing to do with religion. I know for a fact, having discussed this with people I’ve met, that loads of Muslims are just as bewildered, disgusted and horrified by what the nutters out on the fringe of their religion are doing.
Just thought I’d say that.
Moose the Mooche says
The new reality is that we’ve had our party and should now shut up forever.
I was watching Pride the other night… a village of hardcore Welsh miners learn to accept a bunch of middle-class gays and lesbians.
I sighed. This now might as well be a film about unicorns carrying the Holy Grail back from Avalon. 1984 is now more exotically futuristic and impossible than at any time since the 1960s.
Mike_H says
That’s probably enough from me for now.
Be happy.
Moose the Mooche says
No it isn’t.
Phil Pirrip says
Somehow I’m still here. The oldies went hours ago, I’ve struggled through some serious dross on Hootananny (Rag & Bone Man anyone? No me neither), the rest of the household are in the land of nod and at the behest of my sister-in-law 250 miles away, I demolishing a bottle of prosecco and having a text argument about the next big thing and when to see them live. I’m currently opting for after the third album. OOAA
Moose the Mooche says
Rowland Rivron says….
“I’m still alive!”
SteveT says
Rowland Rivron is some pompous twat. Sorry if anyone likes him, he gets right up my nose.
minibreakfast says
I know for a fact that @colin-h LOVES him. 😉
Colin H says
I haven’t seen (sorry, skimmed through on catch-up) this Joolsananny – is Rivron in it? As regular AWers will know, I find the man untalented and pointless and for decades given licence-fee funded opportunities to reveal these qualities time and time again on BBC radio and television. At some future time someone will write a book or thesis entitled ‘Cronyism and the closed-shop mentality: the BBC’s creative ouput in the late 20th and early 21st centuries’, and its principal case study will be Rowland Rivron.
Twang says
Having a solo final glass of red wine. Great evening actually, fab grub, music, kids behaved, had a few scotches too many (but we were listening to Kris Drever)… so i can’t go with the zeitgeist and say I had a dry biscuit and an early night….went out, saw freinds, had fun. Apols.
Phil Pirrip says
Glad to hear it. Best wishes for 2017 Mr T.
Sante
Twang says
And you P
Lunaman says
Happy new year! I spent last night on the beach in Goa. Absolute madness, fireworks in huge shapes and sizes being let off so close that we actually had to dive out of the way. It was more like a war zone at at times. Once will probably be enough but I’ve never had a NYE like it.
Best wishes to you all for 2017.
RubyBlue says
Struggled to get my son to sleep (just like every night). Fully intended to stay up and watch the fireworks (I can see the display from my window, being part of the metropolitan elite) but ended up slumped on the bed and missed everything.
Scrolled through Facebook to see a friend at a glamorous party in Paris. But would I have wanted to have been there? (Actually yes. Yes, I would.)
Hey ho, Happy New Year: wishing you all health, peace and sleep in 2017. xx
Twang says
And you Ruby.
Moose the Mooche says
Merry Noo Year Roobs.
The engine Driver says
The days of not seeing my bed till the 2nd have long gone! NYE went for a meal at a local restaurant and then popped into the local about 22:00 and left just after the bells. The GLW went straight to bed having mainlined prosecco. Watched the shite that was Jools Holland for a few minutes, (What the hell was Chaka Khan wearing?) turned over to BBC4 and watched Mark Gattis discussing Bond then went to bed 1:30, changed days.
Twang says
She looked like some vast industrial rubber inflatable!
Colin H says
Surely that’s Ruby Turner’s traditional role in these Jools Orchestra blatant-promo-athons (sorry, hootenanies)?
Gatz says
We thought IT appeared to be wearing her rather than the other way around.
hubert rawlinson says
I thought she was advertising the new year DFS sale.
Moose the Mooche says
Scrolling down this quickly I momentarily thought that there was such a thing as an inflatable Chaka Khan.
The existence of such an item for purchase would in time result in my submitting a Nights In review that would lead to my being kicked off the site forever.
Gatz says
And add a whole new dimension to ‘Nights In’ which we hadn’t previously considered.
Moose the Mooche says
Hadn’t? Yeah right.
GCU Grey Area says
She looked like the real life version of when a cartoon character gets a stack of car tyres (‘Acme’ brand) dropped on them, thus impeding their progress.
Moose the Mooche says
Meep meep!
GCU Grey Area says
Serious Corsetry. TMFTL.
Moose the Mooche says
I’ve just had a look at this get up, and I think it may be an unexpected tribute to The Great Rock’n’Roll Swindle.
“Myyyy name is Malcolm Maclaren….”
Freddy Steady says
Chaka Khan was very definitely every woman wearing that outfit.
NYE’s in Southwold. Lovely stuff. A walk from the pier along the beach with friends and dogs. Clear and sunny. 4 (4!!!!) pints of various Adnams from early afternoon then back to the holiday home for nibbles and games and wine. Which was nice.
Bored by Jools as normal and ready for bed just after the fireworks.
SteveT says
Don’t normally like NYE but this year was enjoyable. Our daughters boyfriend was working until 10.30pm – we picked him up on the dot to rush to a restaurant booking for 11pm around 30 miles away!! (My daughter has no perception of distance and time).
We got there at 11.15pm but they held our table for us. Jerk chicken, reggae and cocktails was a nice way to see the New Year in. We parked free out of charge right outside the restaurant on New Years Eve, the cocktails were two for one and the price for the 4 of us including drinks was a tad over £100 which I thought was a bargain.
A good night which was what was needed given recent family bereavements. I hope 2017 is better for all of my friends on this site.
One final thing, when we left the restaurant there were 5 ambulances with flashing lights within 1 mile of where we were. Why do people feel the need to either fight or get that drunk that they need hospitalising? The drinking culture in this country is out of control and A&E departments throughout the country will have had to divert resources away from the genuinely needy to tend to self inflicted headcases.
Blue Boy says
Happy New Year one and all. We had driven home 250 miles during the day so opted for a quick early pint at the local, then back home for a takeaway curry and an evening in front of the telly – witness for the Prosecution on catchup followed by Jools. Rock and roll! Jools was pretty dire – it was good in its day but really past its sell by date now. Thank goodness for Christine and the Queens, the one thing worth watching it for.
Uncle Wheaty says
Happy New Year to the Afterword collective.
I had my usual party with former university mates (we meet up every new year – 25 years and counting) and had a good time and for the first time in 3 years I wasn’t driving so much red wine was consumed.
Also discovered the joys of the Hatfield Ramada hotel!