At the end of the year of Ebola, Isis, Ukip, airline disasters and food banks, sometimes you can sweat the small stuff. What do you personally want to do next year? Instead of fantasising about stuff you may never do, make time by stopping things you don’t much like anyway. That way you can really let yourself go and seek out the new experiences you desire.
Never mind a bucket list, just have a kick-that-bucket attitude. Compile a mop list of activities that soak up your energy unnecessarily and stop doing them. Instant free time!
Theatre
Early in the year some Toby/Dom/Tris asked me to see a play and review it on the radio. “I can’t be bothered,” I said. “But surely you love theatre?” said Dom/Tris/Toby. “No, I hate it.” “You hate all theatre?” Having made such a dramatic statement, I felt I should stand my ground: “Yes, all theatre.” As I put the phone down, the whoosh of relief was amazing. For 30 years I have been going to the theatre and can count on one hand the number of worthwhile things I have seen. Call me a philistine. People often do and then insist on taking me again to convert me.No more! Not being able to get to the bar at the interval, the awful overacting, the desperate applause of audiences willing themselves to believe that, yes, it was worth all that money? Not for me. Give me dance or a band or a movie every time. A bad film is always better than mediocre theatre. It’s for people who don’t go out any more.
Or as Patrick Troughton, himself an actor, said: “I can’t stand all that shouting in the evening.”
‘Design’
I am so glad to have stayed in a boutique hotel but why must I now turn my own home into one?
Early-morning meetings
Er … why? Do you work in ER or are you a pilot? Mostly people who want power breakfasts work in offices. It’s some horrible 80s hangover. Why do work before you go to work? All of this is simply to signal to other people that you are phenomenally important. No one cares. Nothing happens when you do. Who are the people who crashed the economy? The ones that got up stupidly early to do it.
Babies
Lovely and time-consuming if they are yours. Totally uninteresting blobs if not.
Shopping
Do you love it? If not just stop. Everything can be got online or locally. You really never need to go into a smelly changing room again unless that is your heart’s desire. Once you lose the will to shop, news about shopping becomes more and more bizarre. Why am I expected to be interested in the fortunes of Tesco and its dodgy accounts? Why are the profit margins of M&S headline news? Are these nationalised companies? No.
Cars
Another year has gone by without me driving. This is good not only for the planet but for my nearest and dearest. Conversation about cars is dull. If you are excited by the gamut of emotion that runs from Clarkson to Hamilton, I can do nothing for you.
The telly box
“Watercooler TV” is increasingly reliant on tired formats. It’s mostly declawed camp dregs from Strictly to X Factor, with high drama provided by distress over cakes in a tent. If this makes you happy, fab, but the idea that this is “good” is preposterous. People do not want to say how crap it actually is because it indicates a lack of humour or “the common touch”. What is way more patronising is to treat the audience as basically moronic.
Crime fiction/whodunnits
A man usually. Or – spoiler alert – a woman.
Celebrity gossip
As they reproduce asexually you can never keep up, so don’t try. Who is Olly Murs? What is Shia LaBeouf? Keep it on a need-to-know basis and you will find you don’t need to know much. Successful millionaire Jennifer Aniston is still sad! It’s perfectly OK to ponder the weight loss/gain of someone you have never heard of. That’s how the Daily Mail works. Non-famous people wheel from reality show to reality show until everyone agrees they can get in the famous club – eg Jake Quickenden, who was “famous for being in the bottom two of X Factor in week three”. He won I’m a Celeb. Yes.
Couples
People are in couples or they are not and those who can’t relax about that are not worth bothering with. Life really is too short to have to like people in pairs. If you like someone, it’s a bonus if you like the person they sleep with, but if not ... so what? Couple culture is out of hand. Loosen up, guys.
Dinner parties
Has anyone ever enjoyed them? Honestly? Eating with friends is lovely, but competitive cooking? Surely no one does this any more? The level of faff on shows like MasterChef is deceptive. The reality is much more like the barmy creatures who open a few tins and sniff around in other folks’ underwear drawers like on Come Dine With Me. Or am I revealing too much?
Taking advice
There is already too much of it around. All of it is highly overrated. Take it from me, freedom comes in making up your own mind.
