How are the new year's resolutions going?

Continuing her series tackling socially unacceptable questions, Christine Manby looks at one question that we could do without hearing in the dull depths of January

Illustrations by Tom Ford

Happy new year! How is 2019 treating you so far? Well, I hope. Did you make any new year’s resolutions? More to the point, are you keeping them?

“Don’t ask,” you mutter as you chuck a couple of half-price Lindt reindeers and a bottle of prosecco into the shopping basket that was meant to be full of joy-free veg. Dull, wet January is no time to be stinting on the fizz and chocolate, right? And yet, every year roughly a third of British adults do make new year’s resolutions and most of them involve physical self-improvement.

The most popular annual resolution according to decades of YouGov polls is “to lose weight”, closely followed by “exercise more” and “eat more healthily”. We also plan to drink less, quit the fags and cut out sugar. All very worthy. Imagine how lovely life could be if we managed all of that. It might even give us the energy to take up an evening class, learn a new language, write a novel, knit our own workout gear and be nicer to our in-laws.