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January, sick and tired, you’ve been hanging on me

Posted January 17th, 2012 by Al Fox. 3 Comments

January.  Loath it or loath it, we can’t avoid it.  Here are some reasons why January sucks. It wasn’t hard to come up with these, but what is hard, is trying to think of reasons why it ain’t so bad.  See if you can think of any…..

Pantomimes after Christmas are great…..  Oh no they’re not!

You really know it’s Christmas when you’re off to the local Panto.  Except when it’s January that is.  Why do people go to the panto in January?  January’s not for gratuitous gags and merriment, it’s for misery, darkness and deep, deep depression.  Start the Pantos earlier if you want a longer run and keep Jan for a downbeat lockdown.

Too Much Month Left at the End of the Money

Ugghh this is when January goes on for years. Skint by the 7^th Jan and yet it’s still weeks and weeks until payday.  Quick look at the sales? Forget it, a mooch through the Council Tip would be the wiser move.  Christmas is for overspending and that’s all well and good, but the only people looking forward to mid-January are the Pay Day Loans

vultures.  And if you’re contemplating one of those, you might want to just say no and speak to a local Credit Union instead. They’re good guys in a sea of bastards.

Self-Assessment

The HMRC made January even worse by declaring it the month where you have to submit your tax return.  But they’re not daft.  They know that you’re going to leave it until the last minute.  Thus ensuring almost full four weeks of thinking “Oh shit, I still need to fill in my self-assessment”.  They did this solely to make you hate them more.  And you thought that this wasn’t possible.

It’s ages until anything good

Christmas couldn’t be any further away and summer holidays seem like a distant dream.  Some people cheer themselves up by booking their summer break at this time of year.  Come July this makes the less organised amongst us curse our lack of planning, as the bargain we secretly hoped for turns out to be an overpriced toilet.  Anyway, in January, anything good is an age away.

New Years’ Resolutions

I’m not going to talk about feelings of failure we get for breaking resolutions as that’s far too clichéd.  Especially as I’m drinking a Tiger Beer whilst writing this – after pledging to stay off alcohol until February.

New Year, New You (vom)

At this time of the year, it’s best not to look at magazine or newspaper covers in shops as many of them will be shouting the phrase “New Year, New You”.  You can imagine the kind of sanctimonious crap that will be in the article.  Don’t even think about reading it. Just complain to the newsagent and then write to your MP.

Chinese New Year

Unless you live in a major city with a large Chinese community that always puts on a genuinely good show for their new year (I.E. London), then this is not even worth talking about.  Supermarkets will push their takeaway Chinese meals, newspapers will do something suitably themed (prepared last summer) and that’s about it. This year will be the year of the meerkat apparently.

Weather

We’ve had the gales (half our roof tiles can testify to this), and there’s lots of flooding (which is always fascinating to watch on the news – unless of course you happen to be watching it from the community centre because your house is under three feet of brown water).  Weather in January is spectacularly crap. It’s the coldest month of the year with snow, sleet and a fair amount of rain.  It’s dark in the mornings and dark in the evenings.

My God, what redeeming factors does January have?

Apologies if you were expecting an ending with a silver lining. Perhaps a list of counter-reasons why January is actually great.  We did wrack our brains but we’re really struggling.  Please can you tell us what is good about January below?

In the meantime, have a wonderful 2012 one and all – and remember, New Year, New You!

P.S. Younger readers may not recognise the title of this post.  Let the late Uncle Jimmy Saville enlighten you here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8aZfqUnPqE&feature=related

Posted in January

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