I hit the jackpot while my customers hit the sauce

Should you go anywhere other than your local for New Year’s Eve? No. There are certain nights in the publican’s calendar that are known in the trade as ‘Nightswhenpeoplewhodon’tusuallygotothepubgo tothepub’. New Year’s Eve is the ultimate one of these.

St Patrick’s Day is another. It has an incredible transformative power of making Irishmen out of us all – suddenly out of nowhere the utterly 100 per cent cockney bloke you were talking to starts to say, ‘So it does, so it does…’ and the urge to slap him rises in your gut and you have to walk away and spend the night grinding your teeth. But, basically, New Year’s Eve, for punter and publican alike, is like an unhappy, rich relative dying – everyone’s a winner. I hit the jackpot while my customers hit the sauce.

The local is the only place to go on New Year’s Eve. What’s the alternative? Stay at home? You start the night in with the missus because she says you need some quality time. She suggests you have some tea, so you might have a nice microwaved lasagne or, if it’s been a good year, you send her out for some fish and chips. After dinner, you sit on the sofa and watch the same telly that’s been on all year, the only difference being it’s coming live from the side of the Thames. It gets to about 11.30pm and the missus wants to crawl off to bed. Next thing you know, you’re sat in on your tod, watching Jools’s Hootenanny halfway through a bottle of Safeway gin. By now you’re getting texts from mates asking where you are and the girl at the office wishing you a happy New Year. You wake up next morning on the sofa with the empty gin bottle in your hand, a hangover and no fond memories at all.

Go to your local on New Year’s Eve. You’ll only split up next year anyway.

Al Murray’s Happy Hour DVD Series 1 is out now, and The Pub Landlord’s Guide To British Common Sense is out in paperback. www.thepublandlord.com