THE annual conundrum is upon us. As the calendar flips over from December 31 to January 1, the perennial question remains to puzzle us. We step across the threshold from 2021 into 2022 with still no satisfactory answer. We may be bleary-eyed, hungover and half-awake; or euphoric,  full of good cheer and a friend to all. The one constant, however, is that those are merely passing moods. All else remains unchanged. A new year, unlike a change of underwear, makes not an iota of difference.

So why all the fuss and madness?

The world and all its many troubles will be the same festering mess we had in 2021.

Not a single national leader will have rethought their attitude towards the rest of them.

No drug cartel will have closed their doors and turned to exporting bananas or coffee.

No one will see their burdensome mortgage and overdraft transform into a bountiful credit.

We will not have plunged en masse down a rabbit hole with Alice and come out smiling on the other side; or stepped into the wardrobe and found a fantasy land of mystery and magic.

Sad but true. That’s the way it goes. Always has done probably always will.

A fleeting few hours of booze-boosted euphoria and extreme optimism only to wake befuddled and bleary to discover so little has changed.