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Frequent traveller: On the midnight plane

30 Nov 2012 by BusinessTraveller

In which our correspondent resolves to have a good time on New Year’s Eve for once…

The year was 2005, and after 11 months working in the Japanese capital I had decided to head for Tokyo Tower in Roppongi, where my co-workers had told me there would be a big fireworks display on New Year’s Eve. The crowds gathered, the anticipation mounted – and when midnight came, all that happened was that the year flashed up in LEDs on top of the tower. No colourful explosions lighting up the night sky, no “oohs” and “aahs”, just a polite smattering of applause and a long journey home.

Such is the gamble we have to take every December 31, when it comes to deciding how to celebrate. You get all spruced up, spend hours in hopeful anticipation of some serious fireworks… and then it’s all over in minutes. Which puts me in mind of my ex-husband, and I really don’t need any memories of him on New Year’s Eve.

Combustibles can be positively life-threatening, too, which is another reason to steer clear of them. Take the Year of the Divorce, when I decided to ring in a new era in Amsterdam with a group of friends. I was having a thoroughly enjoyable time pounding the icy pavements, ducking in and out of snug bars to knock back yet another glass of champagne, until boxes of firecrackers started being set off outside. Gangs of pyromaniacs were turning the quaint Dutch capital into a war zone, and I had to run the gauntlet of explosions to get to the main square for the finale. Slippery streets and tipsy me weren’t the best combination, and over I went in my holiday heels, twisting my ankle. A throbbing head wasn’t the only thing I was nursing on the flight home the next day.

Frequent Traveller ©BenSouthan 2012

Illustration by Ben Southan

Inevitably, it always seems as if everybody else is having more fun than you. On every New Year’s Eve that I have chosen to have a quiet night in with Jools Holland’s Hootenanny, I’ve either fallen asleep on the sofa by 11pm, or drank too much gin and become embroiled in petty arguments with him indoors about who threw away the last of the turkey.

Hence, on this occasion, my New Year’s resolution is to have a bloody good time. Forget house parties, though, they are not the answer, at least when you get to my age. People always pair off inappropriately, giving you a nasty shock when you go to collect your coat from the bedroom at 1.30am. And then there’s the stale finger food, which is a guaranteed way to go back to work with a cold.

So what will I do this time? I have always been fascinated by how people in other countries celebrate – the Scots, with their whisky, kilts and raucous renditions of Auld Lang Syne; the Spanish, who eat 12 grapes for every chime of the clock at midnight; and the Danes, who pile broken dishes on each other’s doorsteps. In Panama, I’ve heard they burn straw effigies of celebrities, while Filipinos dress in polka dot clothing and tuck into giant midnight feasts.

My favourite custom, though, is in hot-blooded Brazil, where the colour of the underwear you have on determines your future – people put on red if they want passion, pink for love, yellow for money, green for luck and white for peace. Apparently, when the credit crunch hit in 2008, every shop sold out of yellow bras and knickers. They were flying off the shelves.

And what about the dreaded morning after? For me, New Year’s Day has often been a case of two Alka Seltzer and cooking lunch for the parents (and the less-than-charming in-laws, too, for a good few years). I have some mad English friends who drive to the coast for an icy swim in the sea, and others in the US who like to go to a ball game, but both are forms of torture in my opinion.

So, I’ve come up with a solution. After much consideration, and thanks to the air miles I’ve saved, I have decided to treat myself to a first class flight from London to Sydney. That way I will spend New Year’s in peace, sipping bubbly and catching up on movies, before landing on January 2 for a sunny holiday. No countdowns, no fireworks, no ill-advised midnight kisses. Instead, I’ll be cruising through the time zones as everyone far below hugs each other at the count of 12. I have a good feeling about 2013. And when I board my flight, I may even be wearing pink undies.

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