Reboots

In recent times, meaning the period in which social media has risen and conquered the recording of history present and past, along with so much else (also known as the New Dark Ages among the enlightened and the Knew Dark Ages among the wits, so called because of the effect that social media has had on truth and by extension knowledge), the time of year associated with rebirth has shifted, from New Year’s Day to Midwinter’s Day.
This is in part because of the association of Midwinter’s Day with the longest period of darkness, meaning that once the Shortest Day is over, the days start getting longer and lighter and generally better, until the wonder that is the Clock Change arrives and everyone is back to commuting in darkness again until summer arrives in England, usually scheduled for late August.
There is something undeniably rebirthy about Midwinter’s Day, the Shortest Day, call it what you will.  Oddly, few if any refer to it as the Longest Night.  This is probably because there is an ancestor-memory aversion to contemplating extended periods of darkness, doing so will lead one to Google cures for Seasonal Affected Disorder, and also give rise to an odd compulsion to light fires in caves, or inconveniently the modern equivalent thereof - normally an airing cupboard, or paint the walls with pictures of woolly mammoths.
There is no doubt that days getting longer and lighter are a good thing, good for those who like to sport shorts, good for those who enjoy outdoor stuff, bad for vampires yes but, you know, everything comes at a cost and since the Brexit referendum those Transylvanian bloodsuckers, literally, can bugger off back to their own country.
What hasn’t happened, yet, is the moneytisation of Midwinter’s Day, with the exception of the National Trust who treble the cost of parking at Stonehenge that day.
New Year’s Day, however, now that’s all about the rebirth.  It’s all about the Brand New You, because the Old You is fucked, let’s face it.
First of all, you’re too fat.  You must be, given the huge number of diets that launch in the New Year.  Possibly the problem is down to the increasing use of fats and sugars in our processed food and food manufacturers not being as transparent as they might be about what’s in the food, while food sellers push two for one deals on unhealthy stuff and fizzy drinks but rarely on lobster.
In addition, let’s be honest, you have just come out of a Christmas where you, as an adult, had an entire selection box for breakfast at least once, and have, if you have the means and are lucky enough, have not stopped eating leftovers since 3:15pm on Christmas Day.  Let us be quite clear, there is no upper limit to the tolerance of the average British male to a turkey sandwich if he is offered one.
Second of all, you’re too stupid.  That’s why at New Year you will be offered the opportunity to begin collecting partworks about WWII, HMS Victory, or Elizabethan knot gardens (free seed packet with first issue).  You may think that you could educate yourself by watching the ‘Yesterday’ channel, a lot, but the real scholar recognises that only by buying what is essentially a collection of Wikipedia articles, printed out in 200 separate weekly magazines, will you become an authority on any subject.
Know a male by his strata of literature.
Lying on his bed, a paperback by Stephen King.
Under the mattress, Razzle (other mags are available, I am given to understand).
Under the bed, 74 copies of ‘History and that’ or similar, collection abandoned when interest waned because they had covered all the good stuff by issue 12.
So the new year can be a time of rebirth or, this being the Century of the Fruitbat, reboot, or even reimagining.
G&P has been on a two year sabbatical, more or less.  There have been some specials, some more special than others, but bluntly there is so much going on that one feels it is almost a moral duty to write blog posts that nobody will ever read.  Time to reboot.  Up the arse.