Never look a resolution in the mouth

The best thing about Chinese life, of course, is that you get two cracks at New Year's resolutions. That thought ran through my mind the other day as the creme de menthe liegeoise (or some such) Belgian chocolate melted in my mouth, my ninth such delight in the space of about 20 minutes. Well, people will keep on giving boxes of chocolates as gifts for that other great festival, Christmas.

Thus another year of failed efforts and unrealized expectations began to draw to an end, the disappointment anesthetized by that menthe. Or was it absinthe?

As any motivational trainer will tell you, the key to meeting goals is to make them specific and realizable. However, as any realist like me knows - I revel in the aphorism that a pessimist is an optimist with experience - the more vague your goals are, the more likely you are to keep them.