Tuesday 30 December 2014

New Years Around The World

I have often wondered where in the World you could stand on December 31st, do the Auld Lang Syne bit and then step across a border and do it all again an hour later so you can celebrate New Years twice. 
If you have a spare £7,380 the company PrivateFly will fly you from Sydney after the bells chime in 2015 to land in Los Angeles 11 hours later to do it all over again.
There is an even easier way though and you get the chance to sleep off most of the alcohol in your body before pounding your liver again 25 hours later.
Due to the International Dateline passing between the Somoan Islands in the Pacific Ocean, the Eastern Island is the first place on Earth to leave 2014 and the Western Island the last to arrive in 2015 25 hours later.
As Somoa is 14 hours infront of Britain, it will be 10am New Years Eve when the East Somoans are clasping hands and singing about Auld aquataince that may be forgot and our thoughts will be on elevenses when the New Zealanders step outside of 2014.  
Lunch will have been finished at 1pm when Australians get even more drunk than usual and stare bleary eyed at a clock striking midnight.
Then it's Japan at 3pm followed by China at 4pm and then India who are awkward and have lost half hour at some point and celebrate the arrival of New Years Day at 6.30pm British time.
The Bacardi Breezers will be flowing freely by 8.30 pm at New Years Eve parties here while they will already be dancing in the streets of Tehran as Iranian clocks chime midnight followed half an hour later by brave Moscovites filling Red Square at 9pm. 
The Greeks will be smashing plates at 10pm British Time and then the Parisians will be eyeing the fireworks spinning out of the Eiffel Tower an hour later at 11pm which is just about the time when you are wondering where the police cone came from that you have been wearing for the past 20 minutes.
Then it is our turn and after a brisk Hokey Cokey and a search for your other shoe, it's onto Greenland who will join us in 2015.  
When Brazilians dance around on Copacabana Beach, it will be 2am on New Years Day and at 4am we will all be snoring loudly and exhaling alcohol fumes when the Canadians do whatever they do at midnight. 
At 5am the United States will be shooting guns into the air like drunken Yosemite Sam in a Bugs Bunny Cartoon before the Western part of Somoa is the last to exit 2014 just in time for the Brits to wake up and break the vast majority of our New Years Resolutions within the first hour.

2 comments:

Liber - Latin for "The Free One" said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lucy said...

Good call, didn't think of the Poles. I remember Michael Palin doing that and saying he walked all around the World.
Not sure why Jan 1st in New Years either, not even the start of a season so probably some historical reason.