It's nearly the end of January so it seems like a fitting time to consider which New Year's resolutions have hit the dust and which ones have successfully made it through a month which would try the patience of a saint. My first one was, "be a nicer person", which is a little hard to assess - I haven't eaten too many small children which is a good thing, but I have been guilty of lying to the odd Big Issue seller. It just seems nicer to say, "I've already got one", somehow.
I haven't given up my resolution to practice yoga every day for the simple reason that I never started in the first place. But then, I figure that the stars are probably better aligned in February, or better still, August, for starting that kind of carry-on. I also attempted a one-woman campaign to stop the practice of kissing on both cheeks - one is quite flowery and French enough, thanks very much - but as usual it ended in miserable failure. When people are dead set on kissing you twice, rearing away from them half way through the operation tends to look like abject horror or at least a serious neurosis.
So that means that only one of my resolutions has so far proved successful - to date I have not succumbed to the guilty pleasures of drinking and dialling. This I might add, is really quite some feat as I used to be a holy terror for arriving in from the pub or a party, making a cup of tea and weaving my way to the stereo. But on the way there, I would be distracted by that most dangerous of machines in the hands of a drunk person: the telephone.
When I'm sober, I would rather lop my legs off than ring a boy I had kissed a few times to tell him that he was "reeelly nisch". Sober, I wouldn't dream of calling up a good friend at 3 a.m. to tell her I loved her. Sober, I probably wouldn't feel the need to let my sister in New Zealand know that I would always be there for her. But with a few drinks in me, it suddenly became imperative that I share these gems of information with the world.
Luckily, I was usually very fond during these late night phone calls - I imagine aggressive drink dialers find themselves in awful trouble on Monday mornings. Luckily too, I usually had the presence of mind to ring people I knew would be awake because experience told me that the recently disturbed aren't as receptive to being lovebombed as you'd think. This respect for people's sleep patterns has the added advantage of ensuring that the people I called at 4 a.m. tended to be as tipsy and fond as I was.
However, the whole theory fell apart when I started to take time zones into account. The first time I realised that when it was 3 a.m. in Dublin, it was only a very civilised 10 p.m. in New York, was the beginning of the end. It suddenly seemed a very good idea to call and tell my friends how wonderful they all were, regardless of the fact they were stone cold sober and I was a couple of drinks short of upright.
Calls to Australia and New Zealand were even more dangerous - even allowing for the miracles of modern technology, it must have been vaguely alarming to have to listen to my in-depth breakdown of the "mosht amazhing party" over breakfast. When you also take the delayed shock of a massive phone bill into account, the whole practice became distinctly unhealthy.
Still, despite an earlier Winging It column where I vowed very publicly to stop being silly and get a mobile phone like the rest of the world, I've rather stubbornly refused to do anything of the sort. While this means I'm still regarded as some kind of Luddite or fool by the rest of the journalist community and indeed, the world at large, it has meant that I've been spared the dangers of sending text messages while under the influence.
I first realised the pitfalls of these when sitting next to a couple of teenagers in a cafe, shamelessly listening to their conversation. One girl was explaining that she had got her mobile phone at the same time as somebody called Gary who was "reeeelly nice" but not her type at all. Anyway, they were both working out how to use their new toys and had got into the habit of sending each other text messages, just for the laugh, like.
They had struck up quite a friendship via text message, arranging to meet in pubs with all their mates on a Friday, or checking in where the crew was going the next day. It was on one of these nights out that this girl had got together with David, who it seems, was Gary's best friend.
"And now Gary won't reply to any of my text messages," she wailed. "I bet he thinks that I was just messaging him to find out where David was but it just wasn't like that."
This exchange opened up a whole world previously unknown to me. A few enquiries of my phone-toting friends later, revealed that there's a brand new method of communication out there, one with its own rules, etiquette and pitfalls. For example, sending a text message is, apparently, a much easier method of flirting than actually having to talk on the darned phone. You can send some terribly witty little bon mot, the likes of which you'd never come up with in a million years if you were actually talking to the person you fancy.
The only problem is that the temptation to do this kind of thing increases in proportion to the amount of drink you've consumed, while the wittiness of the message is likely to decrease correspondingly. One friend is still attempting to deny sending a message that went, "let's love while we're young, baby", at four in the morning, despite the fact it was obviously sent from her phone. The stroke of midnight on January 31st of last year also produced a particularly spectacular crop of obscure messages apparently.
Now isn't that just typical? Just when I have one weakness in the form of drink dialling conquered, another one rears its head - drink messaging. It all goes to prove a thesis I have long held to be true which is this: while telecommunications and software companies constantly try to tell us they are working to improve communications, the truth is far different. In fact, all they're doing is multiplying the ways in which we can possibly embarrass ourselves, get into trouble or cause offence. And just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they're not all out to get me.