Andrew Kay: New year new me?

With my 59th birthday on the horizon, am I really likely to change?

If I had a pound for every time someone in the office has suggested that we run a January feature called “New Year, New You”, I would be able to pay for the sort of radical cosmetic surgery that would make it possible for me to start a new and anonymous life. In the world of magazines, the cliche is wheeled out with alarming regularity in the hope that we will inspire people to take a fresh look at fitness, and businesses to promote fitness too.

I should exercise and perhaps diet and drink less and … but am I likely to? I suspect not

I have never ever set foot in a gym and I know that some of you will be sniggering now, as that is completely obvious from the ramshackle state that my body is in. Oh I know I should take it seriously, I know that I should exercise and perhaps diet and drink less and … but am I likely to? I suspect not. I’m not particularly happy with the wreck of a carcass that I inhabit but I am less happy about spending money on gym clothes, gym membership, and having done that parading my decrepit body around a sweaty emporium filled with the buff and the beautiful. Perhaps they are missing a trick, maybe days where only the chubby and crumbly can go – forget Zumba, why not try Crumba!

So do I have any plans for the New Year? Well I have some, but if my track record for keeping resolutions is anything to go by they will be short lived.

I could plan to go out less – but that isn’t going to happen is it? I mean, what would I write about here? “Tuesday, stayed home and watched Holby City, made dinner, craved biscuits, went to bed in the hope that the craving would abate, got up at two and made toast with jam to soothe sugar crisis …” It’s just so dull. So no, In 2015 I will be going out!
I could make a commitment to being tidier. I’m not a tidy person, I live in stylish chaos and I love it.

I did a bit of serious tidying up a few months back and unleashed a tsunami of nostalgia, uncovering boxes of stuff that I could not part with but could not see a reason to keep either. It made me very uneasy, so much so that I simply put a lid on most of it and stored it back from whence it came. So tidy I will not be in 2015.

Perhaps I should join some kind of organisation. My best friend Ms C is urging me to join a choir. Yes, I love to sing, and as well as a fairly serious karaoke habit I also sang and wrote the lyrics for the opening music for my TV show Cook It! – have a listen next time on Channel 8, that’s me shaking those pots and pans over the opening credits.

The truth about being in a choir is that it requires two things; a good voice (and in my book the ability to read music) and commitment. I would love to be able to offer that kind of reliable commitment but I simply cannot, too much happens in my life on an ad-hoc basis that I cannot avoid. I would be a terrible choir member, missing rehearsals and probably performances too, as my life takes me far and wide and often at very short notice. So a chorister I will not be. (I’m rather sad about this as I do like a good sing, but for now it will be Lucky Voice and the shower). So New Year, same old me – or will it be? Watch this space, maybe there will be a few changes. I’m not promising anything, just wait and see. In the mean time, happy New Year.