I admit nothing of the sort. I am proud that I hate New Year’s Eve. It is quite beyond me how any sentient human being could actually enjoy it.
When Sartre wrote that hell is other people, he clearly had in mind one specific gathering — that which takes place annually on December 31.

Despite the fact that every year it serves up the same combination of discomfort, expense and misery, come the following year people behave as if the entire wretched experience has been wiped from their memory and look forward to it once again as the greatest party night of the year.

Almost certainly you will know — at most — half a dozen people at the party. As midnight strikes, you must celebrate joyously with strangers. Yes, I can think of nothing I would rather do than be pushed into a conga around the room in the middle of the night with people to whom I have never spoken.

Then there is the sheer bloody pointlessness of the thing. Why is it happening? Celebrating the forward movement of time might just as well be done at 03.47 on April 15 or at any other random moment.

It’s not just parties, of course. Restaurants are even worse. A bog-standard bistro near my flat, where a toasted cheese sandwich normally costs me a fiver, is charging £75 a head “including a glass of champagne at midnight”.

There is clearly a large market of idiots. The evening is fully booked.

I admit that I like: being in bed when you lot are partying.

My proudest moment was going to bed at 10.30pm on December 31 1999. I’ll do the same thing this year. There are few greater pleasures than walking the empty streets with a clear head on the morning of January 1 as the rest of the country nurses its hangover.

Smug, me? You bet.