Reading Redlegs in Soho yesterday has reminded me that, although I’m not a fan of making resolutions, a few seasonal wishes for the coming year might be in order (just don’t invoice me until January, OK?). We can all wish for the big things, like world peace, and for our own selfish wants (a big lottery win), so we’ll skip those and concentrate on things to improve society or make life more interesting. So here’s my selection:

1. Men stop wearing ties. I never did see the sense of voluntarily putting a noose round one’s neck.
2. Someone blitzes all the slummy London suburbs (so that’s all of them then!) giving us each our own underground cabin and using the land to grow organic fruit, vegetables and woodland.
3. The 2012 Olympics are cancelled (or at least moved out of London).
4. People realise that infertility treatment is aberrant and potentially dangerous.
5. There’s a revival of ’70s pop music.
6. There’s also a revival of Latin Tridentine mass. (No, I know I’m not a believer, but Latin Tridentine is a magical spell.)
7. The works of Anthony Powell become appreciated and fashionable – and they’re added to the Eng. Lit syllabus.
8. People finally learn to think, and they start doing it for themselves – thus making their own properly constructed moral codes without the need for religion.
9. Political parties are banned and all MPs, councillors, etc. have to be independents.
10. There is a general improvement in body awareness along with an acceptance of nudity and sexuality as being a normal part of life. Public nudity becomes acceptable. Sex and nudity need to be normalised and not seen as aberrant.
11. We have a return to the era of the heterogeneous High Street shopping experience, with a concomitant decline in the dominance of supermarkets, megastores and on-line mega-malls.
12. All empty office buildings (and any abandoned supermarkets, see above) are compulsorily converted into low cost housing, or demolished and converted to parkland or woodland.
13. Reality TV, sitcoms and soaps hit the buffers. TV goes up-market.
14. Prostitution and cannabis are legalised and regulated; they can then be taxed so we all benefit.
15. Everybody’s pensions are doubled overnight.
16. The railways and the utility companies are taken back into public ownership where they belong.
17. There is a realisation that employers have to appoint the best person for the job and that positive discrimination is … just discrimination against a different set of people.
18. The banks remember that what they are playing with is our money (not theirs) and they compensate us accordingly.
19. And finally: health, wealth and happiness to all. For ever and ever. Amen.

So what would your list be?