January

First of all a very Happy New Year to you all. Second of all how are you getting on with your New Year Resolutions? And third of all.... I’ve broken mine already.

I could take some comfort from the fact that ten per cent of resolutions are broken within forty eight hours of December 31st, but that just makes me like everybody else. Where’s the comfort in that?

One of my resolutions was not to laugh at the mistakes my mum and dad make due to their refusal to bow to old age and wear their hearing aids, but that was broken early when my dad asked my twelve year old daughter what she had got for Christmas. Since she’s very proud of her celebrity perfume, she mentioned that amongst the many presents she received had been a pack of “Paris Hilton”. My dad took me aside later and asked why we were giving his grandaughter Paracetamol in her Christmas stocking.

Regarding my other resolutions I guess I’m a bit common. Like everyone, I’ve resolved to get fit again, maybe even getting hold of one of those fitness DVDs that flood the shops at this time of year. Producers draw up a Presenters wish list for these videos with, in third place, any actress who was once in Eastenders, in second place any actress who was once in Eastenders and is known to be a bit of a porker and, top of the pile, any actress who was once in Eastenders, is known to be a bit of a porker and once sang with The Nolans.

I know this because a pal of mine produces these DVDs and it’s a nightmare way of earning a living. One newly slim TV personality who used to eat half a buffalo for elevenses was porking up again before the publicity tour had died down so my pal had to employ a "fridge sitter" with a padlock. She kicked another actress off the publicity junket after the constant clinking of vodka bottles in her bag drowned out her interviews, and yet another is now back to being the size of a Japanese town. That's Tokyo.

But I’ll have to do something. As I sat down to write I saw a strange sight. There was something familiar about the two blobs I saw as my legs folded in to the chair and I suddenly realised I hadn’t seen them for some time. They were my knees which have remained hidden by my stomach all year.

I’m told that twenty five per cent of folk give up the good intentions by the end of the first week of January and another twenty five per cent by the end of the month. That still leaves half sticking to their guns, so good for them.

About thirteen years ago I resolved to give up tea and coffee and I’ve almost never touched a drop since then resulting in cleaner teeth and cheaper grocery bills. Problem is that as I now drink just hot water, everyone looks at me as if I’ve asked for Advocaat and blackcurrant. They pity me with looks that say "he's obviously on special medicine". But why? I think you’ll find water was around before PG gave us his Tips and Maxwell bought his House thank you very much.

The resolution that I haven’t yet broken is to cut back on my chocolate intake. I still eat it of course but the intravenous drip has gone and the Thorntons roll ups remain unsmoked. In my world that counts as progress.

Traditions

I guess every household has its own traditions at this time of year, whether it’s breaking resolutions, tipping that discarded, crispy, Christmas tree over the fence into a neighbour’s garden or expressing surprise to the bin men that the Christmas envelope you left for them must have been nicked.

The Scottish tradition of “first footing” is important to Scots everywhere and, each New Year’s Eve, my Dad visits and goes outside at one minute to midnight so he can ring the bell and be the first visitor of the new year. Our family’s variation on the theme is to merrily ignore the door bell and leave him freezing on the porch step.

Of course traditions don’t have to be as old as Nicholas Parsons to be worthwhile and some have only been going for a few years. In our house, for example, one tradition we have every New Year is that I sit the kids down and video them answering questions. It’s not so much a pilot for a new quiz show as a look back over the past year with them remembering their holidays, school friends, adventures and activities.

I have these tapes going back around eight years so it really is a fantastic family record of growing up. Except, of course, it isn’t, as we never, ever, watch them.

In good moments I have visions of my kids sitting down with the tapes in years to come and laughing uproariously at the way their voices, faces and fashions have changed over the years. They’ll forget me dragging them against their will to do it, prompting them from behind camera and making them sing whatever nursery rhyme or song was their favourite at the time. They’ll fall on their knees with angelic choirs on fluffy clouds ringing in their ears as they sing their thanks in soft focus and probably in Latin. Then they’ll text their thanks to me in Heaven.

But the reality is they’ve both told me that, when I go to meet the great Director in the sky, these “end of year” tapes will go in the big wooden box with me.

And yet I still tied them down again last week, forced truth drugs down their throat and did a review of their year and, for the first time, I think I noticed a little bit of interest. No rushing off to catch Coronation Street, email their friends or grab the Ipods. They actually cooperated and were inspired afterwards to go find more memories by digging out their baby books.

Now I realise that those of you without kids will probably think, at best, that this is pointless and, at worst, you’ll be reaching for the sick bag. But hey, it’s a parent’s lot to be misunderstood. Childless friends of mine think those of us who intentionally put little people on the planet are a waste of skin and self important, totally pointless and deserving of the debts we run up. We are the Kerry Katona of life’s pecking order.

In truth, though, we probably bring it on ourselves. When my first daughter, Annalie, was born I was broadcasting on Radio Two, filling in for Ken Bruce. Terry Wogan congratulated me at the changeover and various others popped in with big cigars and I felt duty bound to share my joy with the world. I was elated like never before till I read the duty log - that’s the record of calls received from listeners - and found many variations of “Tell Coia to shut the hell up. You’d think no one had ever given birth before”. I was gutted.

Yet I now know how they felt because I’ve come to understand that kids are great, intelligent, funny and talented only when they’re your own. I’m afraid to say that other people’s kids just don’t hack it and when an acquaintance tells me a story about how funny their kid is, or what a clever thing he said the other day, I feel exactly like those cynical, jaded radio callers.

So, with that in mind, it’s with trepidation that I share with you what my eldest found in her baby book. Among the curls from her first hair cut, lists of kids at her first party, photos of her with Santa, and a tatty piece of plastic that revealed itself to be her hospital bracelet, I’d written something she’d said when she was three and which I’d long forgotten.

As she’d started loving the sound of her own voice, Annalie was repeating everything she overheard including my being told off by my wife for only driving with one hand on the wheel. For days I was harangued by this tot from the back seat and then, one day, she wandered in to the loo where I was standing answering a call of nature. She stared aghast and tutted loudly. “Two hands on your willy Daddy, two hands”.

Although those end of year tapes may well be going in the box with me when I go, I’ll be holding on to them with both hands and I’ll come back to haunt future generations of my family by slipping the cassettes in to their tape players every new year.

For now, though, I’d better go and let my Dad in.