Get The Party Started

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday December 14, 2007

Keith Austin

Time for a bit of debauchery, writes Keith Austin.

THERE'S nothing much new under the sun. The Ancient Greeks and Romans, for instance, didn't wear underwear; today, Britney follows much the same classical tradition. Ditto the custom of making new year resolutions - something the Babylonians were doing as far back as the 20th century.

But what a difference 4000 years make - while we're resolving to stop smoking, lose weight or wear knickers, the Babylonians' most popular resolution was to return borrowed farm equipment. So if you do still have the Jones's plough now might be a good time to give it back. As an old Babylonian saying goes: nothing spoils a new year like an unfurrowed field.

Oh all right, I made that last bit up. This, though, is true: New Year's Eve 2005 was longer than other years by one second following a decision by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (www.iers.org) to extend it by a second to bring atomic clocks into synchronisation with the Earth's rotation.

Actually, that's not exactly true either. The extra second was added at midnight in London (Greenwich Mean Time and all that) so for Australia the extra second was added during the afternoon of January 1, 2006. Spookily, that was the day when the temperature reached 44.2 degrees in Sydney - the city's hottest New Year's Day on record - and sparked bushfires, caused power blackouts and left our beaches littered with Englishmen sporting faces the colour of a baboon's bum. One second you're fine and then . . .

January 1 as New Year's Day, was more or less plucked out of the air by the Roman Senate in 153 BC, fiddled about with by emperors and then set in stone by Julius Caesar in 46 BC.

(Now there was a year and a half. No, really, it literally was a year and a half. To make his new Julian calendar work, Caesar had to extend 46 BC by 180 days to 445 days. No wonder they called it the year of confusion. Imagine the discussion in the back of the cart on the road to the venalicium: "Is it New Year's Eve yet? Is it New Year's Eve yet?")

Though the Western world has only adopted January 1 as the start of a new year in the past 400 or so years - regardless of when it's celebrated - it goes to the heart of the very human need for contact, however fleeting, for renewal and for improvement.

Of course it also helps that another deep and abiding human desire is the need for a good old debauch and the odd compulsion, once a year, to count backwards from 10. When else can you hug strangers in the street? When else can you completely fail to catch a cab?

In New York they'll stand in the freezing cold in Times Square to count down to 2008. In London they'll try to drown themselves in Trafalgar Square. Here we'll try to drink the town dry.

What also makes us love new year so much is, I suspect, that it's mostly a secular date on which people of all faiths, cultures and beliefs can get together as one and watch other people blow stuff up. (Though, believe it or not, there is a Jewish new year for trees called Tu B'Shevat - January 22 in 2008 if you want to get together for a bit of a knees up with your eucalyptus.)

Of course, the first people to develop fireworks were the Chinese in the 12th century (the Chinese year 4706 begins on February 7 next year) when their primitive rockets were used to frighten away evil spirits with their loud bangs.

Eight hundred years later, their apotropaic pyrotechnic techniques (try saying that after a few New Year's Eve cocktails) have been refined to the point that the City of Sydney celebrates New Year's Eve on the harbour by setting fire to 3000 kg of explosive devices, including about 11,000 shells and 10,000 shooting comets.

This year the theme of one of the largest free public events in the world is 'The Time Of Our Lives' and the show includes a boat parade and the Sydney Harbour Bridge midnight show. (For more details, see www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/NYE.)

Finally, in the quest for complete coverage of the night's bizarre events we bring you this from the City of Sydney website: "Tips for Pet Owners - domestic pets can be very sensitive to the noise of fireworks and react with panic. It is important for pet owners to take special precautions during any fireworks display."

Among the more sensible advice is this wonderful gobbet of information: in the month before New Year's Eve, it seems, you must "undertake a positive training program to desensitise your pet to loud noise". This no doubt involves turning Led Zeppelin's greatest hits up to 11 and tying your cat to the speaker, creeping up behind the dog and shouting "BOO!", and flicking the hamster when it's not looking.

Proper information and tapes, it seems, can be obtained by contacting your local vet, "animal behaviourist or record shop".