The Last Post - of 2023 At Any Rate...

Here we are again at the turn of yet another year. There was a time when the wind-up to midnight's chime would have started mid-afternoon, with the lacing up of a far-too-loud sound system in the confines of a small terraced house in Winson Green, Birmingham, and my father shoring up the floor of the front room from below in the cellar with baulks of timber, to support the weight and dancing feet of the later-assembled throng. We could pack thirty to fifty people into our little house for a party in those days: two small rooms, eleven-foot square, and a kitchen of half that width to accommodate the lot; well into the early hours of New Year's Day.

Fifty years on, and many, many more such parties under our belts, we find ourselves far less inclined these days to even stay the course of the evening, let alone to the hour of midnight. We might watch a bit of Jools Holland, as has been the case for the last couple of decades or so: occasionally to the end and Big Ben's chimes; although they themselves tend to ring hollow in the knowledge that the programme is pre-recorded. As to tonight, I've no idea: I'll play it by ear. Whatever time I'm away to bed, I wish you the very best for the coming year: Christ alone knows we need a better one than the last thirteen...