Adieu 2008. It's been a blast. A busy year, with many new developments and the usual tantalising feeling that something biggish or at least significant might be about to occur. But I've been here too many times to believe such feelings and luckily am in a position where I am enjoying the level that I am at so much that I slightly worry about rocking the boat. Certainly far more hits than misses this year and if I'd only done forty odd podcasts and written the Headmaster's Son then that would have been quite enough for one year. But managed to get a bit more in too (you can read my summation of 2008
in the History section of this website).
On a personal level things have taken a good step forwards and this year's New Year's Eve was a little different
than last year's. Then I was alone in Shepherd's Bush, drinking camomile tea, planning a new regime of sobriety and hard work, wondering if I'd keep Warming Up for another 366 days (check), whether I'd have another Edinburgh show under my belt (check) and whether I'd have fathered a child (have to put a cross by that one). Not that I know of anyway!!!! Ha ha ha. Actually for once in my life I can be certain that I haven't done that.... well along with the first 19 years of my existence, when it would have been pretty remarkable too.
Not that we were very sociable this year. We were asked if we wanted to get the bus into town to go to a bar and watch the fireworks by my football fanatic friend (who is as I suspected, a sweet and sociable man - I always knew that I was the dick in the football story), but never having enjoyed the forced sociability of this day anyway, I had already resolved to just have a quiet time with my girlfriend, eat some nice food and see the New Year in drinking wine on the beach, with the stars as our fireworks. And that all went very well to plan.
Although I didn't eat just banana flambe, I did end the meal with another one - it wasn't quite as delicious as the first one. Still good, but not as mind blowing. There is a lesson there for us all. I also had an impressively large and delicious lobster tail, which was much better than the first one. So..er... the lesson doesn't hold up. There is no lesson.
We watched a rubbish film that we'd rented from iTunes (though, oh the technological marvel that allows that. The film was
Wanted and if you want to see a movie that is a cross between Fight Club and the Matrix, but much, much worse than either of them, then this is a film for you. I was slightly sad to see the brilliant actor, James Mcevoy prostitute himself in this way, but, you know, he got to snog Angelina Jolie and I'd probably have taken the job if I'd known about that in advance. And I'd have been much more rubbish in it. Though ironically, in some ways, it might have been a better film if I was playing the lead.
Just before midnight we paused the film and walked down to the beach. We have been going to bed early so far this holiday and more or less passing out after dinner and this was the first time we had really got a clear look at the night time sky. It was breathtaking. These days it is very hard to find anywhere in the world where you can get a clear look at the starscape without having most of it blotted out by light pollution. But tonight there were thousands and thousands of stars, bright and clear and actually twinkling in the black sky. In my memory there used to be nights like this in the UK in my childhood, but you don't get them any more. It was majestic and awesome and beautiful.
We were alone on the beach, the waves crashing in on to the shore, searching out our toes. Just us and nature and a bottle of rose. One of the hotel cats came down to see what we were up to. And you know what curiosity did to the cat. Nothing in this instance. I think he thought we were crazy. He sat with his back to the waves and to the sky, refusing to acknowledge the coming event, apparently unconcerned by the approaching waves - my head forwards, his back, like some kind of Sphinxy Janus (except with the head of a cat and the body of a man).
I can't think of a more perfect place to see in the New Year though - certainly a lot better than being on my own in my lounge in Shepherd's Bush, listening to other people's party poppers. Rather diametrically opposed bookends to the year 2008.
Looking at the stars, we were observing the distant past, standing on the beach, with the warm breeze on our faces and the sand beneath our toes we were firmly fixed in the present and somewhere in front of us, the first wave of 2009, was already heading towards us, unstoppable, inevitable - the future. Then behind it the next wave, the future ticking onwards in roughly six second intervals and there's nothing we can do to stop it. Not even our feline Canute turned back would make a difference. I was caught up in the magic and romance of it all. Who needs fantasy, when science is this good already?
Midnight came with a kiss and with wine, two things missing from the picture last year, and the fireworks created a dim glow in the distance over the hill. But we'd made the right choice. Fireworks seemed tawdry compared to what nature was giving for free. My girlfriend saw a shooting star. That's Adam's fireworks.
I can't imagine I will experience a better New Year's arrival in my life and it's certainly the best of, admittedly quite a miserable selection, of the 42 New Year's I've been around to see.
Then we went to watch the last 15 minutes of "Wanted" and if anything can snap you back into the mundanity and misery of existence then it is that. But for a few moments we were gods with our fingers touching the seams of creation.
