This is the year you get to be a slimmer, fitter, lovelier, version of "you". All you have to do is apply yourself properly this year and you could really turn things around and change from being the failed miserable person you are now to a happy, shiny person you have always wanted to be.

You know . . . that drink-/smoke-free, fresh-faced person with no points on their licence and a tidy cutlery drawer! So throw out that wardrobe, give up carbs, change the car, your hair colour, redecorate the house.

In fact, instead of just fecking around trying to lose those final five pounds and upgrading your bedroom curtains, why not go the whole hog and dispense with "you" altogether?

Take on an alter-identity . . . maybe you could sell the house and use the money for major surgery?

Then you could move to another country, ditch your partner, put your children into foster care . . . and create a brand new history for yourself.

The whole new year resolutions thing is the most ghastly illustration of how far we have not come as human beings.

In the wake of Christmas where we have spent an average of 1,500 on mindless crap per household, we are now going to pronounce that the mince pies, the brandy, the Quality Street vegetation in front of six-hour TV-watching marathons, was a slothful, sinful waste of time and try to punish ourselves for it in the new year.

We enjoy ourselves by over-indulging, then we punish ourselves.

What a stupid way to live.

Why are we never ever happy with what we have got? Is it just a construct or are we human beings just naturally programmed to dissatisfaction: to always want to be thinner, richer . . . have a bigger car, bigger bosoms, a bigger, better house?

Let's break the mould and this year and say: "For 2007 I am just going to bloody well get on with it and stop moaning about my kids, the car, the spouse." Or even: "Hurray! It's 2007 and I am still alive! I ate this many carbs, smoked this many fags, went this far over my recommended alcohol limit, had this much drunken unprotected sex and yet . . . here I still am for another year."

2007 . . . the year I became a marginally less postmodern neurotic. Now that's something worth aiming for.