How can you tell it's January?

- Some nob in lycra shorts, a beanie and carrying a collapsible bike panted into the seat next to me on the train this morning. Naturally he was about 45 years old. Red faced with misplaced virtuousness, slimy with sweat. Out of his trendy back pack he produced a 'power shake' and made a show of drinking it loudly with many manly gulps. The green goo probably had berries in it and some spinach or kale or whatever. Tosser. He'll be depressed and fat by March wondering where his wife’s gone and why his kids hate him. Seen it a million times.

- The car park of the local leisure centre is overflowing with wall to wall Renault Espaces as the obese attend their obligatory January health classes (that cost twelve months of subscription). In the gym, they will walk slowly on running machines and do two sets of 1.5K weights, all the time talking loudly to similarly obese friends. Before having a Mars bar, coke and cigarette to celebrate having not showered. Luckily, the car park will be clear again mid February.

- Here in Battersea Arts Centre, the Monday night runners club is swelling more than an adolescent boy's trousers spying on the female changing room. Being all around 28-32 they should just hang signs around their necks 'I want to get married'. Some might wear 'and have babies' too for good measure. Given their age and fitful nature, the group will be half the size by March. Still, lots of weddings to attend summer 2018. 

- The world is full of people doing a ‘dry’ January. Frankly this is about as exciting as getting a hand job when drunk from a bored transvestite in torn fishnets at the end of a long shift. Or so my mate Dan tells me. The radical thing - the cool thing - is to have a 'Get pissed in January' January. That's what the clever people do.

You can tell it’s January because the cold is never as cold as it should be, the snow is never that thick, the money never lasts, the resolutions fail, ennui tears at your soul and good intentions whither.

You can tell it’s January because January is just like any other damn month.

Happy New Year.