YOUR NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS 2015

Well come on now, it's a week into the new year and I haven't heard a whiff of your New Year's resolutions. I've made mine of course. Just the usual stuff - become a better bitcoin billionaire, lose a third of a kilo, improve my Greek, Latin, and High German, and learn Mandarin so I can understand at a deeper level the extremely tidy 13th Century Chinese poet Feng Shui. Finally, I have resolved to attain saint-like levels of patience, tolerance, and understanding. Honesty forces me to admit this last one took a tumble by Friday when I was forced to sack a junior writer after the grievously incorrect use of the future pluperfect in an article about farting. And perhaps ordering him to be tarred-and-feathered was a little extreme but this is grammar we're talking about.

Okay, yes, and I know I promised I was going to stop making fun of  my older brother Tristan's emotional support Alpaca and it was good of him to travel all the way from New York to join us for Christmas and I know he's suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome ( Tristan not the alpaca) but you have to realise this was not a result of military conflict as we understand it. Unless you count the War on Drugs. It's not completely clear on whose side Tristan has been fighting, but in 1967 he was the LSD critic for the Village Voice and later the Editor-on-Drugs for Rolling Stone. And now he travels with an emotional-support alpaca called Tanqueray. No really.

And maybe I went a bit far assigning Tristan a special bathroom for the Emotionally Handicapped with the mirrors removed and replaced by signs that say "Hey. You Look Fine" . At least I removed that sign above the urinal that read "Hey Big Fella, Put that Thing Away You'll Have Someone's Eye Out With That". I like to think I know where to draw the line.

Which is more than I can say for the Alpaca. I thought it was only the Llama that spat at you  but no. Not only did the thing spit, it shit at the same time. Now perhaps it was startled by our choice of Christmas carols but the family is keen on a few rousing choruses of (I Don't Want to Go to) Rehab to get into that Yuletide spirit. and I would have thought an emotional-support animal would be better trained.

I have an emotional-support animal of my own. We call them editors, and mine has reminded my of one further resolution of my own which is to stop babbling & wandering off on diversions about undeclared wars and common misunderstandings about ferrets and come to the point. He's right. I'm here to talk about your New Year's Resolutions. Clearly you need direction here. Unfortunately we're running out of time so I'll have to be brief:

 1. You will shut the fuck up about your Paleo diet. No really. It is rubbish. A bunch of friends and I grew proper beards once and went out hunting with artisan spears and bows and arrows and everything. We couldn't find a single Woolly Mammoth and Tarquin forgot to bring the portable espresso machine. It was a nightmare.

2. And we've talked about this before. Unless your family does in fact consist of stick figures, I must insist you stop putting fraudulent graphic depictions on the rear window of your car.

3. The animal videos on Facebook. They have to stop. No. I must insist. I must never again be forced to watch a dog mixing the perfect martini or a giraffe breastfeeding an orphaned baby duck. I will not be amazed by what happens next. I will not be deeply moved. I will not think this is the funniest thing I have ever seen. From now on you may only post pictures of animals that look like ferrets. In fact they must be ferrets. If the picture you are about to post does not look like animal pictured below, stop now.

A FERRET

4. Finally. Hipsters. This is getting serious people. It's time to stop making fun, and start exterminating. Perhaps some poisoned focaccia or vegan pizza. You could strangle them with knitting wool. I'll leave it up to you. The other day in a coffee bar in an art gallery I saw my first three yr old hipster. Hair clothes portable Olivetti typewriter, everything but the beard. I'm pretty sure he was writing lyrics for an alt-country song and he ordered a double-shot 3/4 strength ristretto with a teaspoon of cold goat's milk. We're all doomed. Save yourselves