This New Year’s day I will not be trying to moderate Sancerre consumption, cut back on Nicorette gum, exercise more or aim to finish my next book by Easter. I have decided to postpone all resolutions until February 19th which according to the Chinese calendar is the ‘Year of the Sheep’.

This has several advantages. While many of you are writing checks to your local gym, juicing your carrots and celery and forgoing your gin and tonic, I shall be partying on for several more weeks, secure in the knowledge that almost one and a half billion people will also be ignoring the first of January.

A review of last year’s resolutions has demonstrated that this is wise. If you see the old year out with gusto and Auld Lang Syne and the new one in with several glasses of bubbly, the chances of bouncing out of bed at six am all wide eyed and bushy-tailed on the first of the month are seriously reduced. In fact experience has shown that the only way to get a glimpse of the dawn is not to go to bed at all.

No, this year I shall not be beating myself up by the weekend. Our holiday lights will stay up through January. I have accepted that a calendar date has failed to deliver a new improved me over the years. Let’s face it, January can be bleak. Why make yourself more miserable by attempting an overnight personality transformation? As they say – “Always be yourself because the people who mind don’t matter and the people who matter don’t mind.”