Save the planet for sure – but leave us a little joy from life – Connacht Tribune Group

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

Is your pet drinking more than normal?” screamed the headline on one local paper recently – in a time before every story seemed to move us one step closer to the end of the world.

But back then – in simpler times – your first thought is that, Janey Mac, even the dog isn’t safe from this obsession with New Year purification.

Thankfully, the canine population were ultimately spared Dry January – and indeed the point of the vet’s advice was that some of them don’t drink half enough (water, not beer) – but the rest of us are nearly beaten into submission by the health brigade.

You have to look both ways walking out your own front door now in case you’re pummelled into the ground by happy runners, decked out in new Lycra after the Christmas and determined to ensure it will be far too roomy for them by the time the year is out.

Smokers probably feel like pariahs at all times of the year but they must have to gather in underground bunkers every January, for as long as the television adverts go out urging everyone to quit the weed.

Gyms organise January promotions; you could gorge yourself to death on the food supplements or suppressants – and that’s without the annual shaming of substantial people on live TV…otherwise known as Operation Transformation.

This year, there was even a crackdown on meat-eaters, with Veganuary – a sort of vegan version of growing a moustache for November – which has been growing exponentially since it was launched in the UK in 2014.

Clearly the golden era for carnivores is over – in terms of saving yourself and saving the planet – but let’s not try to sort it out in just 30 days.

There are those with much more knowledge than I who will advocate a quantity of meat in a balanced diet – as there are those who eschew chewing meat, and that too is their prerogative.

But it’s the notion that the first day of a new year has to signal a whole new world and a whole new you; evolution was always a better option than revolution.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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