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At last, it’s nearly the end of January. As months go, this is surely the most loathsome of them all: it’s start marks the end of Christmas and the return to work. And work always seems worse at the beginning of the year, as those annoying enthusiastic people take it upon themselves to use the changing of the calendar as an excuse for ‘cracking on with things’ and other such horrendous terms that generally mean having to do more work. People like that need a good, hard slap.
There are very few positive things to say about January, in fact. The weather is typically cold and grey, with dark nights that had a certain thrill back in December, but now just seem depressing. Nobody has much money, either, since it was all spent in the manic Christmas period. There also doesn’t seem an awful lot to look forward to, as the summer holidays seem such a long time away.
Yeah, January sucks all right. It is, of course, named after the two-faced Roman god of time, Janus, whose name sounds a bit like ‘anus’ (which surely can’t be a coincidence).
But still, look on the bright side: it’s nearly over. February is almost upon us, and the shortest month of the year brings with it the promise of Spring, the rampant commercialism of Valentine’s Day and the thought that one twelfth of the year has already gone.
Allow me to wish you all a very happy end to this most miserable month. I may suggest that Hallmark start a line of ‘Death to January’ cards that we could give each other on the 31st. They may laugh in my face, but at least I can think that I’ve at least tried to make the world a better place.