Silence is golden... a scene from Die Grosse Stille
The past fortnight of cultural slumming may have been fun, but it does leave you feeling distinctly hung over. Bingeing on Deal or No Deal is all well and good, but it has the same effect as munching your way through a box of After Eights: after the immediate high you feel queasy and listless for hours afterwards.
So how about a bit of a detox? I'm not just talking here about getting the juicer out from the back of the cupboard and trying to remember how long it takes to steam broccoli. No, what I'm referring to instead is a kind of cultural detox in which you purge yourself of all the glib superficiality of Christmas and start thinking like a serious person again.
Our music writer Caroline Sullivan starts the year by reading a classic novel as an antidote to all the trash she consumes the rest of the year. One broadsheet critic recommended Into Great Silence, a three-hour documentary about Carthusian monks released this week, as the ideal film to purge Christmas's excesses. On this very blog, Louis Theroux's cultural resolutions included reading a long Henry James novel, listening to more classical music, and generally being more grown-up.
So along with the empty bottles of cava it's time to chuck out all that empty-calorie reading matter. Out goes the Radio Times and in comes the New Statesman. Instead of reading novels about girls who chase men in unsuitable shoes, it's time to tackle Madame Bovary and see where all that empty materialism really gets you. Rather than humming along to Girls Aloud it's time to get serious with Bach.
During the first few days of your cultural detox you'll probably get some nasty symptoms. Your head may ache and your attention will certainly be shot to pieces. You'll probably long for a quick burst of sugar - a blast of Celebrity Big Brother, or a quick flip through Heat to see pictures of celebrities greeting the New Year on a white beach on the other side of the world.
But persevere, and you should find that the benefits of your new regime soon begin to kick in. After 36 hours your brain starts to feel like it's doing some real work instead of merely spinning wheels. After two days your memory clears so that you are actually able to remember the names of even minor characters in Bleak House. After a week you'll find the idea of taking your niece to see Mamma Mia for her holiday treat distinctly icky and long to bundle her off to Stratford instead. And, by the time Lent - the official season of penitence begins - rolls around, you should be ready to dust off your old Latin textbooks and discover that getting to grips with the ablative absolute is simply a piece of cake.
What detoxing cultural pursuits would you recommend?
