photo from BBC

The annual tradition of moaning about how shit this year’s Hootenanny was is probably as old as the show itself, yet if you don’t go out on New Year’s Eve then for some reason you watch it. We should know from the regular show Later With Jools Holland that we are in for a pretty shit programme featuring glimmers of greatness among swathes of bland. I gave up and went to bed before the end having seen two songs from Wilko Johnson and Ronnie Spector (not together although that would have been something to remember) and only one song from Hayseed Dixie. Aside from an impressive couple of turns from Paloma Faith and Boz Scaggs I was remarkably underwhelmed by the whole thing, especially as I just don’t get Ed Sheeran at all, he just seems to be an average singer/guitarist who got incredibly lucky.

For a long time now I have been aware (as has everyone) that Christmas specials are usually recorded in the summer so they do very well to create a festive atmosphere for the viewer. Eric Morcambe shrewdly insisted on the iconic Christmas night programme having no mention of Christmas beyond the title and a passing comment in the opening ‘front cloth’ patter between the two. The reason he banned Santa, snow, tinsel, trees, and all the trimmings was a clever one – a repeat in the summer that wouldn’t look silly. These days nobody seems to bother too much and we are often treated to a festive QI on Dave or The Simpsons on Channel 4 in the middle of a heat wave. Although we know that Christmas shows are made in advance (obviously), people seem to have a problem with the fact that Jools’s annual knees up isn’t live on New Year’s Eve.

The BBC only got round to admitting that the show didn’t go out live when they were rounded on by one of the Daily Mail’s attempts to stir up a controversy back in the days of phone quiz cheating and perceived dishonesty. Although it was always something of an open secret, I feel that some of the shine has chipped away from the show now it is all out in the open. It’s one thing for Mrs. Brown and her family to make merry in the summer, but playing along to New Year’s Eve seems a bit weirder somehow. There’s a certain air of knowingness among the audience and the showbiz hangers-on who sit around the front talking about the year ahead before going around wishing each other a Happy New Year.

I rang in the first hours of the fresh New Year ahead by reading Paul Merton’s autobiography Only When I Laugh in bed with a cup of tea and went to sleep at the reasonable hour of around the two o’clock mark, which is actually earlier than I usually do. For the last few days the pavements have been virtually unusable because of the ice, and I very nearly went arse over head a couple of times last night while walking Jack. The park across the road has carried the remnants of the Boxing Day snowfall as it has been too cold for anything to melt. This morning though, every trace of snow and ice had gone. If that isn’t a metaphor for the fresh new outlook that we are supposed to embrace on the first day of the year then I don’t know what is.

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