Wretched Roy stunned by injury setback

Day 7, Wednesday, January 7, 10pm: TRSNYRC has been stunned by an injury crisis to one of its key players.

Midfield general Roy has been crocked by an ankle problem and has had to put off the start of his key 2009 resolution. Nobody quite knows what that resolution involves, not even Roy's physio, but it is believed to involve some sort of physical excercise.

"I'm still up for it but this will produce a slight delay," moaned the sofa-bound playmaker.

It has not been a good start to the year for Roy. Only a few days before, he and his family were watching "Return of the Jedi". When Darth Vader is unmasked during the film's finale, revealing the mutilated remains of his face, one of his daughters piped up: "He looks like Daddy! He looks like Daddy!"

Worse still for our star striker, Roy has himself spotted the resemblance. The truth, apparently, can sometimes hurt more than a dodgy ankle.

Wanted - one 20lb pike, with (computer) chips

Day 6, January 6, 8.30pm: There have been several intriguing TRSNYRC offers over the past few days. My favourite is probably the ambition to catch a 20lb pike in 2009. For ambition, meanwhile, there's nothing to match the goal of going 12 months without alcohol. Irritatingly, both those resolutions come from the same person.

Others have opted for taking on a foreign language, a musical instrument, learning more about computers and technology, drawing and creative writing. Some have given themselves a certain leeway - learning to surf before your son sounds impressive enough, until you discover that said son is not yet six months young.

Others continue to give themselves leeway of a different sort.

"I'm still thinking about it," they say.

You get the feeling they may keep thinking for a while yet -- 51-and-a-half weeks, say.

I, meanwhile, am going cold turkey for my beloved sweets, biscuits, crisps and chocolate. And red wine, too. I'm off that now as well - or at least considering going off it - after receiving that bold 12-month abstention.

Evening is the worst time. Sweets, biscuits and crisps give you something to do while watching rubbish on TV. Without them, I'm finding I watch less rubbish TV. This should be good. But I'm starving. The man at the gym tells me to drink water whenever I feel peckish. I'm spending most of the day - and night - going to the toilet.

Don’t You Just Hate That?

Day 5, January 5, 11am - Okay, okay, so this is not exactly relevant, but I can’t help myself. We all need a rant every now again to clear the nasal passages.

So there I am this morning, walking Seven-Year-Old to school (another of my yet-to-be-published resolutions) as part of a bedraggled caravan of disgruntled first-day-back returnees, when along the rather narrow Hickmans Lane comes a 4x4. It’s going too fast as it approaches the parked cars near the traffic lights and has to break sharply. There’s one small child in the back. The driver has one hand on the wheel while talking into a mobile with the other. She’s yawning. Oh, and did I forget to mention? It was snowing this morning and there was still patches of ice on the roads and pavements.

I am a liberal, but if I could have borrowed Boot Boy’s AK-47 just then, I would have.

I Just Knew Boot Boy Would Say That...

9pm, Saturday, January 3 - In all honesty, I saw it coming. It had to happen and, on reflection, it had to come at the hand of Burgess Hill Boot Boy Jonathan. Thus it is that TRSNYRC tastes its first reverse.

“F*** off,” were Boot Boy’s exact words when I suggested today that he might like to join us. A tirade followed. I don’t remember much of what he said – I was wearing a large saucepan over my head at the time, as his two primary-school tykes bombarded me with cashew nuts and lime jelly left over from their tea – but it was something along the lines of New Year resolutions being smug, and him being happy with who he was, and how he always walked in the opposite direction to the crowd.

Boot Boy, I already knew, is not a man to meddle with. For a start, he is 8ft 6ins tall in his socks and believes hanging is too good for hoodies. And he fires from the hip. His lovely fragrant wife, a woman as far removed as Boot Girl as one could imagine, says he suffers from foot-in-mouth. She recounts a marvellous story when Boot Boy, puffing on his fag at a party, was informed by a 5ft 4ins man that he had decided to give up smoking from January 1^st. Boot Boy responded with typical subtlety.

“Afraid it might stunt your growth, were you?”

Fragrant Wife, however, has joined the cause. An artist of talent and some discernment, she has decided to produce a sketch for every remaining day of the year. What a fine resolution! Boot Boy, meanwhile, snorted, suggested it would have been more fun if he could have made up resolutions for everybody else (he's probably right on this point at least), ordered a taxi and headed off for a pub quiz.

I ended the visit in fine fashion. Having seen off the temptation of stealing one of Seven-Year-Old’s lemon sherbets this morning, I gracefully declined not one, but two offers of Jaffa Cakes from Fragrant Wife. I continue to amaze myself.

STOP PRESS: Our northern representative, Wigan Tony, has made a good point. Giving something up, he argues, is surely as worthy of praise as taking something up. Wigan Tony is a chimney of long standing. He usually smokes three cheroots at a time. “Giving up me fags is the same as taking up breathing,” he points out. A negative resolution, from his standpoint, has its positive side. I bow to the power of his logic. Negative resolutions are henceforth permitted.

Progress (of sorts)

Friday, January 2, 9.30pm: I knew this would happen. I’ve jotted down a few preliminary thoughts and already I’m staring at a resolutions list as long as my arm. Actually, as both my arms. And one leg. I have as much chance of working through my list as I have of becoming President of Guatemala. Interminable resolutions lists are the reason I gave up writing them years ago.

Mind you, I’ve made a good start. My first resolution is to contact everybody in my email contacts list within the next four weeks or delete them. So far, I’ve fired off 52 emails and got 10 replies, including one from India and two from the United States. That’s not too bad, considering how irritating I can be. I’m on my way. And feeling rather cosmopolitan, too.

My second resolution involves health and fit-for-nothingness. I’ll avoid being any more specific at this stage. Just in case I’m tempted to give up before I manage to start. Here too, though, I can announce progress of sorts. I went to my local gym today and asked for a special monthly membership rate. They said no. Still, at least I went. I had a small glass of red wine to celebrate this evening, which was perhaps less commendable. I’m currently fighting the urge to uncork the bottle again.

My third resolution involves a musical instrument but, again, I’m keeping quiet about my exact goal until I have consulted with an expert on the matter. I don’t want to get too ambitious. To date, all I play is an iPod. TB and SYOD tell me that whatever I choose must be equipped with a mute button.

There’s more, involving German irregular verbs, a few rounds of golf, my derisory annual earnings, computer technology, a web site and the state of our house. But, again, I’ll try to avoid heightened expectations by remaining suitably vague. I’m not good with heightened expectation.

TRSNYRC, meanwhile, is growing. I am already planning our first convention. Watch your inboxes.

Day One (later than planned)

January 1, 9.15pm: I have spent a very odd evening indeed with the neighbours. They invited us all back after finding their kitchen still replete with New Year left-overs. And there I sat, sipping irregularly at red wine as if it contained poison and refusing repeated offers of bread, cheese and raspberry cheese cake.

Needless to say, this is unusual behaviour. What makes it particularly odd, however, is that I still have to decide on a resolution. In attempting to keep all options open, I found myself impersonating a tee-total vegan, while being roundly derided by the rest of the table. Indeed, I have spent the first day of 2009 as the perfect human being. After weeks of over-indulgence, I’ve drunk water and eaten fruit and nuts, gone swimming with my daughter and even attempted a couple of physical jerks.

It’s been quite exhausting. I can’t go on like this.

Day One (earlier than planned)

8.36 am, January 1, 2009: I should not be up yet. Or rather, Seven-Year-Old Daughter should not be up yet. She went to sleep at 1.42am and, having turned off her light, I followed shortly after 2am. Ridiculously, she then woke up at 8.23 this morning and announced she was not tired (despite looking like a panda)/where was her breakfast/could she watch CBBCs?

On the subject of breakfast, I am treading on eggshells. I have been known to eat the first thing to come into my field of vision once in the kitchen – chocolate, SYOD’s lemon sherberts, yesterday’s left-overs – but I fancy one of my yet-to-be-set-in-stone resolutions may have something to do with my eating habits. So I plumped for glutinous porridge. Perhaps I’m making it wrong.

I’d better give my resolutions some serious thought today or I’ll have to eat more of the stuff tomorrow.

Last night, incidentally, was spent at Frank and Clare’s. They are excellent hosts. Frank’s chocolate mousse is deadly. I’ve cleaned my teeth twice this morning but I can still taste it – he’d added chilli powder this year, he said, to give it more pep.
Anyway, somewhere between the fifth and seventh bottle of wine, The Usual Suspects discussed the TRSNYRC rules. I’m not sure I can quite remember them all – these may need to be amended somewhat – but I think they ran something like this:

THE RULES (ISH):
* You can choose to make as many resolutions as you like.
* You can keep them secret (for the first two months) if you choose.
* Each resolution must be in some way measurable.
* ‘Stop doing’ resolutions – like “I will stop smoking” – are banned, however commendable. These are ‘start doing’ resolutions only.
* You can, of course, give up any time (The Boss - as in The Wife - I have a feeling, may have given up already).
* You must keep some sort of record of what you attempt/achieve.
* TRSNYRC will convene every few months to celebrate achievements or commiserate with the fallen, with an outrageously alcoholic, chocolate-moussed final meeting sometime in late December 2009.

SYOD wants to go swimming. Head Sloth wants to go back to bed and join TB.