New Year’s Resolutions

Been fat, lazy, rubbish and fat this year? So has THE TAB. Here’s how we will be better people in 2014…

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We at The Tab are not the perfect, celestial figures you quite possibly imagine us to be. In fact, we are just like you boys and girls at home! We make mistakes too.

We also eat too many chocolate coins and have impure thoughts about our co-workers and public health officials. We watch far too many re-runs on Dave and cry when masturbating after a hard day. Given how endearingly human we are, we thought we would make New Year’s Resolutions too. Today is the beginning of the rest of our lives.

Stop Talking in Hyperbole – Beth Swords

I’ve always been a believer in varying my vocabulary and using hyperbole for dramatic effect. Hyperboles, lists of three and filling silences with sighs are my go-tos in daily conversation. However, this year, I’ve decided to rein myself in.

Speaking in hyperbole and using too many superlatives causes numerous problems: it raises people’s expectations, my blood pressure gets dangerously high when I can’t think of an adjective other than “good”, “nice” or “interesting” and far too often, people think I’m being sarcastic. Perhaps most importantly, it gets me confused. In the past week, I have proclaimed that I “live for” Panettone, pigs in blankets and 360 panoramic views. The week is through and I’m none the wiser as to what my raison d’être is.

The best thing in the world

It also crucially accentuates the generation gap. Over Christmas, I jovially mentioned to my mum that I had eaten 50 biscuits that day and therefore, was full. Blindly overlooking my appreciation for exaggeration, she hit the roof and hid the Family Circle box for the rest of the festive period. I felt too foolish to correct myself. Similarly, using the word “pizzazz” to describe Palmerston’s command of the press was not received well by my prelims examiner.

So, from now on, I will enjoy using appropriately fun words for appropriately fun events. Once the year is out, I’ll eat 500 biscuits to celebrate.

Go to the UL – Mollie Wintle

Don’t tell the police, but I’ve only been twice. The first time they tried to make me put my bag away so I got cross and left. The second time, they still tried to make me put my bag away, but this time I remembered that ‘Being lazy is like walking in a thorn patch, but everyone who does right walks on a smooth road.’ (Proverbs 15:19) and so gave in and took out all the criticism on Chaucer I could find.

Unfortunately at the end of Michaelmas my Dos asked me how many times I’d been. I made a noise that could have been twice… but could also have been twenty. And I wish it was twenty. I’ve heard it’s nice there. Amy says that there’s a man there so old that if you get stuck behind him you may as well give up. I’m sure he’s just one of many of many treasures the libe holds. Maybe they also have a petting zoo and a kiosk. Who knows? Not me, because I haven’t been. Not properly. So  my resolution next term is properly to go. I shall take with me a list of references, a sesame bar and a little stick to poke the old man on his way. Maybe I’ll like it so much I’ll never leave! I will be like the man who slept for 100 years although not sleeping but LibrarySearching, and also a woman. My 2014 is made.

Euphoria among the periodicals: an artist’s impression

How To Roll A Cigarette – Patrick Brooks

My New Year’s Resolution is to learn how to roll cigarettes. I have realised that the only way to be seen as ‘edgy’ or worth talking to by the higher echelons of Cambridge’s artsy social circle is to be able to dribble about Sartre (check), whilst hugging your cooky fashion accessory against the cold (check), and, crucially, blowing out a pallid bloom of smoke from the rollie that hangs limply from the corner of your perpetually scornful lips.

Don’t get me wrong, I know that smoking is Not a Good Thing, but anyone who says it’s no longer ‘cool’ or ‘hip’ is talking out of their arse. The only reason I’ve yet to start pumping my lungs full of chemical filth is that I cannot roll for shit. At contact with papers my fingers turn into clumsy lumps; I can barely get the amount of tobacco right, let alone succeed at the inestimably tricky and near-magical swish/tuck/roll manoeuvre that creates a sealed tube. But this year things will change. I intend to dedicate an hour a week to concentrated study of rolling technique, and maybe one day soon when someone drawls, “yo man I’m all out of rollies, can you hook one up?” I will be able to cry, “YES, YES I COULD,” like the bastion of fucking helpfulness that I am.

The swish, tuck and roll reaches its thrilling climax

So there you have it. Four people, four plans for never-ending hapiness. Happy New Year, one and all!