For my sins on New Years Eve I had to sit through the last ten minutes of "Celebrity jigs and reels" and for my tuppence worth it was gawd awful. I may be in the minority of one and the whole of the country might love this kind of fodder but I'm not bothered, in the scheme of things if this is the best RTÉ has to offer to ring in the new year then there is little hope for the state broadcaster.

This was cringeville stuff from an institution that has been living in the comfort zone for far too long and charging the public a licence fee to pay their hefty exec salaries and stuffy dull unimaginative presenters not to mention dull and unimaginative radio and television programming.

Jealousy you may say?, not a whit of it. As a licence fee paying member of the public I'm as entitled to criticise as the next guy. When will RTE stop trawling out the same old faces and give us something new and imaginative? when will all televisions channels for that matter? Bruce Springsteen once wrote a song called "57 channels and nothin' on" and it was never more apt than now.

TV these days survives on a diet of 15 minutes of fame merchants, I'm a celebrity drivel, reality TV and food shows (the latter being the new thinking persons TV). Never was there so much on, of so little quality. Never before was the mass communicator some dumbed down for the masses.

A special New Year's

For many years my New Years Eve's consisted of me jocking in nightclubs and bars, so much so that it led me to develop an absolute aversion to going out on New Years Eve. Too much kissing and hugging strangers for my palate and the maniac need to be happy and full of the joys of the New Year ahead.

Boll*x. All I remember of any real consequence is the above contact with strangers and the battle to find a taxi home at three in the morning. The contrast these days is a midnight pageant in Portmagee, Kerry where the locals (hundreds of them) drive out the old year and welcome in the new.

It's a ceremony that must be centuries old and involves all the village and surrounding country folk. An "old man" is marched down the street with torch lanterns, drums and pipes, and the marching crown behind. He "Dies" on the stroke of midnight and is magically replaced buy a "young man" who is parade down the village to much music and cheering.

This year was a fine dry night and families and friends stood around on the street for a couple of hours chatting and having a few drinks. It was special and somehow had a real old fashioned sense of Ireland, almost pagan or druidic if that makes any sense and a million miles from functions and monkey suits, holding hands in a circle and hugging strangers.