Patrick Leigh-Pemberton: New Year, Old Bullshit

Well, here we go again – a new term, full of new modules, new stresses and new gossip. What could be more fascinating and welcoming than a wealth of new opportunities opening up to us in the New Year? I don’t know about you, but I always find the deluge of neophilic joy and advice at this time of year rather annoying. I won’t go so far as being patronising, as the majority of the people that write this infantile drivel work for The Daily Mail or write horoscopes (though if you find it easy to be patronised by them, then you have serious self-esteem issues). I normally do not really talk about this, merely allowing my all of my opinions to build up into a well-maintained kernel of bitterness within me, waiting to be used on more juicy targets that come along in the year. A sort of stockpile of hate, as President Bush Jr.’s speechwriters might call it. This year, however, I managed to coincide my annual haircut with this period of novelty, and so have been accused by all of turning a new leaf for the New Year.

How perceptive these people are! They have not only noticed that my hair is shorter, but also that my whole worldview has changed at the same time. My hair is tidier, so I will probably do more work. I look more respectable, so I have probably adopted a new political outlook. In no way at all is this in any way annoying, not least when people say “I’m looking forward to more of this new you.” Which sounds suspiciously to me like “I always hated you before, but now you’ve gone the full Samson so we can be real friends”. Why is it that people assume that I want to change? I have had haircuts before, and no one ever associated them with a wholesale change of personality, apart from the time that I shaved my hair and my brother quite rightly pointed out that punk wasn’t for me (it wasn’t – aggression really isn’t my forte).  However, in this instance, I think that this had more to do with the fact that I looked like a dirty tennis ball than anything else.  And yet, make a visit to the barber’s (something I do rarely anyway) at this time of year and everyone assumes it is part of some new life plan.

Well, it isn’t. There isn’t anything that special about this New Year anyway. We still have lectures, we will still pretend to hate the library and love the union. Our tutors will continue to despair of our commitment, whilst departments will still fail to hand back work within their deadlines. Everyone will still go slightly insane towards the end of term, and the only thing that is different is that we will all be one step closer to reality. The same process of deadlines, emails, long hours and shorter hair will continue ad infinitum, ad nauseam, without even the Union to comfort us. So, a happy New Year to you as well.