January. Like December, but without the good stuff....

NO, SANTA IS NOT IN REHAB: THE FOUL McCRIRICK

Tis the season to miss the past month like your first true love and weep inside whilst salivating over steaming crusty baguettes and hunks of alluring cheesy golden goodness sitting pompously on the discount 'Festive Food' shelves as you avoid it like HELL whilst darting through M&S Food at full speed because it is the quickest shortcut to the high street and it is pissing it down with rain outside.

Without a shadow of a doubt, January is the Beelzebub of all months. If December is David Tennant (warm, sparkling with joy and too impossibly cheerful to be sober) then January is John McCririck (engorged, repugnant and full of the discontent which comes when you realise you'll have to wait another eleven and a half months until it will be acceptable to pop a bit of Bailey's into EVERY drink you consume and pour over every meal. Ice cream and Bailey's? Um YES PLEASE. Chocolate cake and Bailey's? HELLO SIR! Mash potato with Bailey's stirred in.... I THINK SO!)

THE AWESOME JOY OF TENNANT

If I had a quid for every person who voiced hopes of reforming their post 2012 eating habits and instead fuelling themselves as if they were taking part in the forthcoming Olympic insanity then I would be showered with such wealth that I could quit my job and live every day as if it were the holy, comforting month of December. I'd sleep on a bed cushioned with Ferrero Rocher, could employ (but inevitably sack after an awkward personal space issue) Cliff Richard as my very own Christmas Carol serenader and would dress only in chains of tinsel wrapped tightly around my bulging, festive and joyful rolls of fat.
Sadly, the likelihood of this happening is pretty dim. And, to add insult to injury, I too have wheezed and clambered on to the New Year health kick bandwagon. At the very least I'm trying to avoid the company of cheese and chocolate for a while - I did attempt to round it off to a nice group of three 'ch' foods to wean myself off, but could only come up with cherries (not so sinful) and Chinese (I can't quit the food of a whole country. That would just be racist.) So here I am, four days in and my cheese radar has gone into overdrive. That pair of soggy shoes I left on the radiator to dry out this evening? Not such a bad stench after all. At least gnawing on one of my many hole-ridden Primark pumps will be a cost effective solution to actually eating. Because, as well as being a bit chubs, I am of course nearly completely skint after the eye-wateringly expensive revelry of Christmas. Every last penny squandered on potatoes and Bailey's. Happy Sodding New Year....