Remaining Resolute
New Year's Resolutions
It’s January 2nd, and I’ve already broken my New Year’s resolution for 2011. It really wasn’t that difficult either, but, given my laughable will-power, it was possibly a step too far this year. Maybe I should’ve followed the example of many comedians I contacted about this piece and chosen resolutions that are either impossible not to achieve – Jason Cook decided he’d quite like to ‘stop killing hitchhikers’ – or so ridiculous their failure is a formality. Steffen Peddie qualifies under the latter category, but we’ll talk about that later.
In light of Jason’s resolution for 2011, Tony Jameson ‘is going to start killing hitchhikers’; whilst Kai Humphries hopes to ‘take up rap’; and Chris Cross emailed over a whole host of resolutions, obviously confusing this activity with his to-do list for the day. Chris’s main promise, though, is to ‘acquire some unusual pets and animals to live in [his] house’, especially a wolf. See – impossible not to achieve.
Having failed her 2010 promise to go swimming once a week, Australian comic Bec Hill’s new objective is ‘to start a new, weekly YouTube show, to gig, or attend gigs a minimum of three times a week, and to finish the sitcom [her and her partner] have been working on for the last three years.’ Andy Fury would like to stop insulting Tony Jameson on internet forums, and ‘complete a couple of half marathons, having completed [his] first last year.’ Richard Gadd’s resolution was just as ambitious: ‘I’m hoping to come up with five minutes of material based on the first word I flick to in the dictionary. In fact I’ll do it now…carrots. Five minutes of material on carrots. Fuck my life.’
Carrot comedy sounds great, but Tiernan Douieb’s intention probably resonated with me the most: ‘My New Year’s resolution for 2011 is to not do things I don’t want to do. It sounds easy but I’d ruined it by January 7th last year by sticking a fork in my eye. Sometimes you just can’t resist temptation.’ Tell me about it.
In case you were wondering, my resolution was simply ‘to have no more resolutions.’ I believe that if you really want to change something you shouldn’t be waiting until a certain date to do so. That’s just silly. That said, Steffen Peddie’s ambitious – some might say ridiculous – promise for the coming year forced me to re-negotiate my own. His resolution? ‘Teach Andrew Dipper how to dance.’
I’ll be reporting back this time next year with the results, but I have a feeling a lot of us will have failed. I guess for most people the temptation to break a New Year’s resolution is just too great – put the chocolate down – though I hope, for the sake of the fictional hitchhikers Jason Cook‘s been killing for the past year, at least one of us succeeds in 2011.
For a full list of Chris Cross’s New Year’s resolutions, simply send Andrew Dipper an email.
