A HAPPY New Year to all our readers as Foolscap enters the year 2012 with optimism...and slight trepidation.
We do not concern ourselves here with mere money, so the financial situation does not faze us at all. It's all about quality of life for us, so champagne, caviar, the company Porsche, international travel and our jacuzzi are all that we need to stay happy.
We hope that you have all made noble resolutions - you know the sort of thing: lose weight, get fit, learn a language, giving up the things we like (fags, booze and so on)...stuff that we have no chance of managing to achieve.
However, it's the worthiness of the resolution rather than its achievability that counts, isn't it? So keep making them and, of course, keep breaking them.
EMPTY. Our drinks cabinet, our emergency bottle of whisky and even our once-a-year litre bottle of sherry. All gone in a frenzy of festive boozing.
All there is to do now is look forward to a brand new year and hope that enough decent news crosses our paths in order that we may pay the bills for another year and we don't have to resort to making things up again for another 12 months, because quite frankly, it's exhausting. New Year resolutions are being dealt with elsewhere in this column, so let's not dwell on those too much here; in any case the only resolve that crossed our paths recently was green powder that dissolves in a glass and mends hangovers.
We were, however, interested to see that our dear editor has made a rash statement in last week's editorial in which he hopes that the 'Strathy' will prove to be a good read in 2012. He does also admit that they tried to make it a good read in 2011, but whether or not this is an admission of failure we can't comment.
CHRISTMAS is a time of year when things that don't come out very often make an appearance: your mum's best gravy jug; a Nativity scene or perhaps your favourite woolly jumper.
These are things that warm the heart and bring a smile to the mouth. There are other things that make an appearance which bring a tear to the eye and can in fact induce a feeling of extreme squeamishness.
When dashing young local solicitor Neil Masson reaches for his Speedo trunks once a year, the nation gasps and prepares itself for the worst.
Again this year we were subjected to the man's propensity for "budgie smugglers" as he bravely - it has to be said - took part in the Spey Splashers event on New Year's Day.
At least this year the cameraman had the presence of mind to wait until Neil was virtually out of shot before pressing the shutter. A close-up of that kind of thing is not for the faint-hearted.
OTHER interesting facts that we notice in this glorious newspaper keep us enthralled for moments every week. Last week we spotted a bit of a crimewave on Hogmanay/New Year's Day. A window was broken at the police station in Aviemore between 8pm on Hogmanay and 8am on January 1. Just across the road, the Mountain café suffered a similar incident around the same time.
We can't help thinking that the police staff party must have been a great success if they can't narrow down the time of their own window being broken to less than 12 hours. We would also like to know on which side the broken glass fell as this might tell us a lot more about the merrymaking. Inside or out?
We can only surmise that the window across the street must have taken a bit of extra effort. These coppers know how to enjoy life to the full.
THAT'S the shopping marathon over for another year - at least it is for us. Possibly there are those of you out there who start buying next year's presents in the sales to save a bit and stay one step ahead of the game, but we are not of that stamp, being happy just to see the end of the hysterical season, listening to never-ending Christmas tunes as we move slowly from shop to shop.
This comes as a study reveals the songs that people most and least want to hear while out buying their Christmas presents.
The results show that the festive classic 'Merry Christmas Everybody' by Slade remains the favourite song to put Britain's shoppers in the holiday spirit.
Meanwhile, Mr Blobby's 'Christmas in Blobbyland' is the one that people just don't want to hear, and we have to say that we would put that song up against waterboarding as an infringement of human rights.
Justin Bieber's 'Mistletoe' and David Hasselhoff's 'Stille Nacht' are not far behind, and while neither of us has ever heard either of these songs, we would certainly not have walked a mile in tight shoes to hear them either.
Christmas shopping is a traumatic enough experience without putting us through all that. We have vowed not to enter any shops other than off-sales for another year.
STILL suffering from having our phone-tapping activities curtailed due to rogue elements in the south - ie all London journalists - we rely on you, our readers, to get us the real lowdown on what gives behind the scenes in Badenoch and Strathspey.
So keep in touch, embarrass your friends and join our hard-working team of moles by contacting us at foolscap@btinternet.com
