January 1st 2016

So; here it is again, New Year’s Day. January 1^st 2016. At midnight last night the cry of ‘Happy New Year ‘ rang out far and wide. The origin of these, mostly false sentiments, is not new. The Winter solstice now occurs on December 22^nd but was in ancient times thought to occur on December 25^th. January 1st however was always New Year day. The day was consecrated to Janus since it was the first of the New Year and of the month of Janus. This ‘feria’ or ‘free day’ was celebrated because of its symbolic augural character as Romans believed the beginning of anything was a portent for the whole. Thus on that day it was customary to exchange cheerful words of good wishes as this would set the tone for the rest of the year.

Hence the tradition has endured. So we all shake hands and exchange hugs wishing one another ‘many happy returns’ and all the rest. There is about as much sincerity in these exchanges of greetings and wishes as there are in a politician’s handshake on a canvass. The Wilde one said;

“A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal”.

The gesture reminds me of two other meaningless gestures which are commonplace and repugnant. At Mass towards the end of the ritual ceremony the pastor invites the congregation to extend the paw and “offer each other a sign of peace”. In some cases it is fortunate that the mass-goers are not armed. The false smiles, the sincerity of the hand clasp, the extending of bonhomie and the counterfeit curtsies would make you vomit.

The other occasion where this imitation concern happens at funerals.

I almost never attend funerals because of the sheer hypocrisy on parade. Parish pump politicians who normally have to be told who the members of the bereaved family are parade to the front of the church to repeat that despicable phrase “I’m sorry for your trouble”. They don’t give a flying fuck if the rest of the family die on the way home from the funeral.

The families, in many cases, are just as bad. I know one local family who stopped talking to their local TD for years because he didn’t attend their father’s funeral. As well as that they swore they would never support him again and all 42 votes in the family would be going somewhere else in the future. The fact that the same TD had fixed up most of the family in jobs for which they were not fit made no difference, and the fact that he was attending the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade in New York at the time was no excuse. Of course the staunch members of the opposition in a show of solidarity all turned up for the funeral and remarked with frowns of disbelief “Where’s Albert, and all ye did for him”. Happy New Year!

All on account of Janus; who was a two faced fucker too!