Category Archives: New year

Digested week: through the Christmas perineum and out the other side

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Despite its awful name it’s my favourite time of year, an excuse to pause any activity – including new year celebrations

And so we find ourselves again at the Christmas perineum, the time between the end of the yuletide celebrations and before the new year shenanigans begin, and a phrase so awful I have felt compelled to use it as often as possible ever since the dark day I learned it about five years ago. Sorry.

Watch less Brooklyn Nine-Nine every evening;

Add a new meal to my culinary repertoire and take the total to nearly three;

Work harder, walk more, cull wardrobe, sort finances, declutter house, clean more, lose weight, see if this improves life or makes me wish I was dead. You’ve got to find out at some point, I reckon.

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Thousands throng central Birmingham amid false rumour of New Year’s Eve fireworks

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Revellers left disappointed after social media reports of display turn out to be a damp squib

Thousands of people gathered in the centre of Birmingham on New Year’s Eve despite a police warning that the announcement of a fireworks display was false.

Police and the city council had urged revellers not to travel after false reports there would be a spectacular show in Centenary Square.

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London welcomes new year with fireworks as weather cancels events across UK

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Tens of thousands attend display in capital while much of the country faces issues with heavy rain and high winds

The UK has welcomed 2025 with fireworks and celebrations in London, but many events across the country were cancelled due to bad weather.

Tens of thousands of people attended the annual event in the capital, with millions more tuning in on television.

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1m people gather on Champs-Élysées in Paris to see in new year

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Parisians and tourists from France and abroad celebrate start of 2023 on famous avenue near Arc de Triomphe

An unexpectedly large crowd of 1 million people crammed on to the Champs-Élysées to celebrate the start of 2023, after two years of Covid cancellations – with Paris officials calling it a “renaissance” in people wanting to get together again and a taster for future big gatherings for the 2024 Olympics.

French authorities had expected about 500,000 Parisians and tourists to flock to the avenue, where a vast display of 340kg of fireworks was set off around the Arc de Triomphe at midnight during a special musical medley.

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Ditching the diet – how I learned to accept the body I have

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A lifetime of hating my body has got me nowhere. If I can’t love it, can I at least respect it?

Every January, the same old battle cry: this will be the year that I get thin. Last January, I did a week-long juice cleanse, and the year before that, I fasted for three days. It wasn’t quite nil by mouth, but almost. At the time, I told myself the science interested me (the fervour with which fasting evangelists assure you that a few days without food can reset your microbiome or stave off cellular ageing is compelling enough to make you ignore the health warnings). Really, though, what I wanted was rapid weight loss, minimum one dress size.

I made it to 81 hours. Practically levitating with hunger, I ignored the advice to reintroduce food slowly (soups and juices before solids) by bingeing on a cheese sandwich, which I promptly threw up. Happy new year to me.

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Haiti’s New Year’s Day soup has made headlines. But let’s not be naive about its symbolism

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Sharing soup joumou on 1 January represents what Haitians bring to the world – but remembering that inequality prevails is arguably more important

Whispers. Curfews. Never-ending military parades and shows of arms. Opponents’ bodies exposed for children to see as some sort of macabre art. And always, that nasal voice of “Papa Doc”, François Duvalier, chanting on all radio stations. Those were the days of my childhood under a dictator in Haiti.

But on 1 January, Independence Day, there were three things that made a difference.

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German optimism over Omicron as Europe dampens new year revelry

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Covid expert hopeful for ‘relatively normal’ winter 2022 but prevalence limits celebrations across continent

Germany’s leading coronavirus expert has expressed optimism that his country could expect a “relatively normal” winter in 2022 as Europe prepared to ring in the new year in muted fashion, with many countries limiting celebrations.

As the highly transmissible Omicron variant fuels a record-breaking surge in Covid infections across the continent, many governments have curtailed mass public gatherings and either closed or imposed curfews on nightclubs.

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Say no to Fomo: how I embraced staying in

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Remember being inundated with invitations and parties? If the last two years have taught me anything, it’s that you don’t have to go to any of them

It was never my intention to hide in the toilet. There was lots going on outside: highbrow small talk and top-tier networking; free drinks, air kisses, and cold canapés that – I’d quickly discovered, following glances – were very much, like my fellow attenders, there only for show. The gallery was filled, I’d been assured, with fashion figures and media leaders. I was lucky to have been invited to this salon, one of the hosts had informed me, generously. Exactly what a “salon” is, I’m still unsure.

Deep down, I just didn’t want to be there. Only 90 minutes previously I’d been watching Gogglebox and scoffing Pringles in bed. But I went along out of some sense of duty. Perhaps a desire to broaden my horizons, or a compulsion to step outside my comfort zone, where I had become too safe and snug. Now here I was, sitting in a locked cubicle counting down the minutes before I could leave without seeming rude.

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Fireworks could fizzle out as drones rise in popularity for new year

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Use of the devices has taken off in recent years, with apparent benefits including less distress to animals

As new year approaches, crowds around the world may be expecting whizzes and bangs to light up the sky. But the appeal of fireworks could fizzle out with the growing use of drones for light shows.

One notable example was the opening ceremony of this year’s Tokyo Olympics, while the Over the Top NYE event at Reunion Tower in Dallas is among those planning to combine fireworks and drones to welcome 2022.

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Light brigade: the Christmas holdouts keeping their decorations up

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English Heritage and Church of England back extending traditional January deadline to brighten gloom of lockdown

In other years, the threat of bad luck if you fail to take your Christmas decorations down by Twelfth Night might have meant something.

In 2021, the idea that things could get any worse seems blackly comic. And so it is that for some people, baubles, lights, and trees are staying in place this year.

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From fireworks to empty streets: 2021 New Year’s Eve celebrations – video

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The new year has been welcomed in parts of the world with mostly muted celebrations as coronavirus lockdowns and curfews quashed large gatherings. Sydney's famed fireworks display played out to a largely empty harbour, while Vietnam's success tackling Covid-19 saw large crowds meet in Hanoi. In Europe, Paris's famed streets were empty as the clock struck midnight, while Berlin's ban on fireworks was ignored by some. In London, Big Ben chimed at the start of 2021, just one hour after the same bells marked the UK's exit from the EU

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‘I’m getting clarity, a time that will feel lighter’: psychics share their 2021 predictions

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From astrology to tarot, interest in the mystical arts has flourished during the pandemic. So what is in store for the year ahead?

This age of uncertainty has been a boon for crystal ball gazers. From New York to New Delhi, fortune-tellers have seen spikes in business; in the US, Forbes magazine reported a 136% rise in people seeking supernatural readings. In societies where religious belief is dwindling, and trust in the establishment under threat, the idea of looking elsewhere for guidance – to the stars or beyond, if you believe in a beyond – has made a kind of sense.

2021 will present an opportunity to reassess what’s important. It brings a chance to rebuild

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Good Riddance 2020: the ultimate New Year’s Eve songs, as voted by you

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We asked you to help us create an epic end of year playlist to see out the bin fire that has been 2020. After nearly 10,000 votes, here it is

We asked you, Guardian readers, to nominate the song you’d want on the ultimate New Year’s Eve playlist: one that represents the year we’ve had, the year we’re hoping for, or just the way we’ll feel (and the words we’ll be screaming) at midnight. Then, 9,534 of you voted on them.

It was all over, though, once the Mountain Goats got involved. Their popular 2011 track This Year was sitting at No 3 until the band discovered it and tweeted about this fact with a shameless plea for votes.

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New year health kicks are great – but your environment is also vital | Dr Robert Wright

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Understanding how environment impacts health will empower us to make the lifestyle changes that matter most, from what foods to buy to fragrances to avoid

Exercising and eating better as part of our new year health kicks are great, but we should also think more deeply about the role the environment plays on our health. As a professor of environmental medicine, I believe this is an exciting new area of study that will play a big part in the future of personalized medicine.

Consider this, every day we are bombarded with messages: genes that cause cancer, supplements that prevent Alzheimer’s disease, diets that prevent asthma, chemicals that make us gain weight. But while headlines frequently proclaim “game changing” new findings, over the last 20 years in the US and Europe our health status as a population has seriously deteriorated. Rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer and learning disorders continue to rise. Genetic variation may be part of the puzzle that explains why we get sick, but clearly there are missing pieces.

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New Year’s Eve 2019: celebrations around the world – live news

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Follow all the celebrations as the clock strikes midnight and countries see out 2019 and welcome in the twenties

With just under 12 hours to go before New Year there, people have been filing into New York’s Times Square, which the city’s counterterrorism czar says will probably be “the safest place on the planet Earth on New Years Eve”.

Thousands of police officers will be on duty for Tuesday night’s festivities, along with specialized units armed with long guns, bomb-sniffing dogs and other measures.

The New Year is being celebrated in countries including Thailand and Vietnam. Tens of thousands of revelers in Indonesias capital of Jakarta were soaked by torrential rains as they waited for New Year’s Eve fireworks.

Festive events along coastal areas near the Sunda Strait were meanwhile dampened by a possible larger eruption of Anak Krakatau, an island volcano that erupted last year just ahead of Christmas Day, triggering a tsunami that killed more than 430 people.

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Hogmanay fury as Edinburgh residents told to apply for access to own homes

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Local people must ask Underbelly if they want more than six passes to their houses

Edinburgh residents have vented their anger at having to apply to a private company for access to their own homes during this year’s Hogmanay celebrations amid growing concern that the council’s hunger to attract tourism is reducing the Scottish capital to a “theme park”.

People living in some parts of the city centre will also face potential restrictions on the number of guests they can invite if they wish to have parties of their own on New Year’s Eve, when the entertainment giant Underbelly will be running an event expected to attract more than 70,000 people.

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Sadiq Khan angers Brexiters with pro-EU fireworks display

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Mayor uses New Year’s Eve event to send message London remains open to Europeans

If the festive season can sometimes involve trolling relatives with different political views, Sadiq Khan has arguably taken the tradition to a grand scale with a New Year’s Eve fireworks display which has prompted apoplexy among Brexiters with its pro-EU message.

The mayor hailed the event, in which the London Eye was lit up in the blue-and-yellow colours of the EU flag, as part of a wider message to Europe that the capital would stay “open-minded” and “outward looking” after Brexit.

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