Happy New Year.

Happy New Year.

So it is that we fall headlong into another New Year. It only seems like yesterday since we were reflecting on the stunningly historic events of 2018 when everything seemed to be in a state of limbo although ironically there was a joyful jubilation when we discovered that we'd just set fire to almost the entire contents of every firework box in the land. Here beginneth the first page of 2019 everybody and happy new year to you all. You all thoroughly deserve it. Your behaviour has been exemplary. Go on, pour yourself another glass of something pleasing to the palate- perhaps a swift rum punch.

Last night though London did itself enormously proud with its yearly spectacular firework display beside the River Thames. It was time for a riot of colour, powerful patriotism and stylish pageantry that London seems to excel at on the big occasion. With every passing year we gather in our thousands by a shivering Embankment in the fond hope that something will leave us both astonished and breathless, that childish wonderment which always seems to lift our heart when things go wildly wrong.

What we were treated to once again was London doing things the way London always wanted as its given right. There were once again those massed crowds tightly packed into the most concentrated and confined area you could possibly cram into one space. Jammed solid together like the proverbial tin of sardines they stood there waiting shoulder to shoulder, breathlessly expectant but perhaps wishing that all that hanging around for hours may not have been the best idea.

And yet London felt like the centre of the universe, the headline act, launched into prominence as one of the chief movers and shakers of the world and all of its inhabitants. From now on Europe and the rest of the world will come to expect much more of Britain and London because of its brand new political and financial stance, a position that has now been thrown into the most dramatically stark relief by events it may or may not be prepared for.

For a while last night at least nothing seemed to matter that much- if only for a while. Everybody sang 'Auld Lang Syne' with that marvellous air of self congratulation that only Britain knows how to do. They counted down the minutes to the beginning of a New Year rather like that noble band of men and women on those famous Apollo space missions from way back when.

Then, at a heavily scaffolded Big Ben the midnight hour passed and that portentous bell rang almost sadly and regretfully perhaps pondering on what might have been if time had been kinder. A thick white sheet hangs loosely around the stomach of Big Ben, its body swathed in what look like convalescent bandages. But ring it did for the last time until the maintenance workers get cracking on a vast repair project that could take years.

Still though, the good people of London gazed across the Thames, the London Eye once again observing everything and everybody around it with a sternly critical but approving look. At midnight the spectacle began, a massive explosion of boisterous colours, an extraordinary art installation on quite the most unbelievable scale, twenty solid minutes of theatre, drama and immensely detailed brushwork.

Here we had the most remarkable complexity of shapes and patterns that the London Mayor Sadiq Khan could only have dreamt about many years ago. There were fireworks that reminded you of huge silver birch trees, sea waves crashing and clashing furiously into each other like cymbals in the traditional orchestra, overlapping, leaping over each other, fireworks that looked like the nearby London bridge, horizontal and vertical displays of light that swirled and spun ever increasingly and mesmerically without pausing for breath.

So it was that the BBC now delighted us all with that gifted ska band who called themselves Madness who this year celebrate their 40th year in the big time. There was the eternally magical House of Fun, the infinitely sing a long My Girl's Mad at Me, the hugely popular Embarrassment and a whole host of the band's now extensive repertoire.

Now seemed the right time to make those inexplicable New Year's Resolutions, to stop eating so much, to stop drinking too much, to spend the whole of the year in sweat stained gyms driving your body towards the point of collapse and then devoting the rest of the year to seemingly pointless diets. It all seems as if we've been through this same rigmarole since time began but if you're still recovering in some warm corner of your living room then you might be considering a repeat performance all over again this time at the end of this year. It makes sense if you think about it.