"There's no time like the present" - I say this every year.

January 1 - Welcome to the dark halls of Tartarus Central.

I've never been one for New Year's resolutions. I haven't committed to give up the booze or take up smoking. I haven't joined a gym or reassessed my diet. But it is January 1 all the same and it makes me think that I've seen a few too many of these slip by without having much to show for it or having learned much along the way - apart from, perhaps, an increased awareness of the relentless progress of time.

Yet you have to start sometime and you have to start somewhere. I just feel that the time was probably a couple of decades back and, however you look at it, it's a long haul back from Tartarus just to get to the break-even point.