Are New Year's Resolutions a thing of the past?

For the third year in a row my New Year's resolution is to lose weight. The last sentence would suggest that for the past two years I haven't stuck to my resolution, that would be correct. "This year will be different" I tell myself, raising an eyebrow questioning my own commitment. I am indeed writing this surrounded by piles of Christmas chocolate, I mean it's not my fault that I was given so much chocolate and not eating it would just be rude, right? Besides, I can start next week or the following...

That's the first mistake, the minute you put off your New Year's resolution it's no longer a new-year thing and with my procrastination skills it can easily become a middle-of-the-year thing which then turns into a never thing. As December comes to an end the pointless and untrue 'New year, new me♥' Facebook statuses are always there for no reason other than my amusement. However, this year I've seen more statuses saying 'Stop with the new year, new me posts as you're not going to change'. Ooh, snappy.

I'm not hugely overweight but I know I really should have a healthier diet and exercise more. I would also love to have the confidence to wear a bikini knowing I look great. It's just difficult to find the motivation to stick to my convictions when the only person who is affected by the outcome is myself. Of course, I know all of the best angles to take a fabulous 'loving life' selfie but there would be nothing better than wearing being able to wear exactly what I want without having to disguise my worst bits.

Perhaps to make our resolutions worthwhile we need to tell the whole world about them. An "It's 2014 and I'm going to quit smoking!" tweet would be embarrassing if one of your followers saw you with a cheeky cigarette outside the office. A before Instagram picture in a bikini would be a disaster if there was never an after, or if the after was actually worse. If all of your Facebook friends knew your resolution was to limit usage on the site it would be awkward if you were never offline.

Could it be possible that New Year's resolutions are just a thing of the past? Are we asking too much of ourselves unnecessarily? Anyway, who decided New Year's Resolutions had to be boring or something we don't want to do? If we made fun resolutions like wear high heels everywhere or eat more bacon then we would have no trouble at all sticking to them. The January Blues would be gone if we all had cool new things to try.

Whatever you're trying to change in 2014, take a look back and ask if you accomplish said task will it make you happy? If the answer is yes, then tell everybody what you're trying to do until you've done it. If the answer is no, then accomplishing it won't warrant your hard work so don't put yourself through it!

My Top 10 New Year's Resolutions:

1. Use more glitter
2. Wear red lipstick
3. DO NOT save it for a special occasion
4. Have more Girls' Nights
5. Give more compliments
6. Step outside your comfort zone
7. When something goes wrong yell "Plot twist!" and move on
8. Invest more time in others
9. Send more Thank You cards
10. Keep your standards as high as your expectations

P.S. I'd like to wish you all a very Happy New Year! I hope 2014 brings you happiness and new experiences.

P.P.S. My other New Year's resolution is to write an article once a fortnight and publish it on the blog. Eek! I've said it now so please hold me to it...

Two Door Cinema Club Bring the Cool to Benidorm

21:30h in Benidorm on Friday 26th July and I'm standing with Alex Trimble, Sam Halliday and Kevin Baird aka Two Door Cinema Club in the middle of a football pitch. We were, of course, backstage at Low Cost Festival. Alex heads back to his dressing room with the Spanish translator we didn't need and birthday boy Sam goes off to catering, leaving Kevin who says, "Shall we just do the interview here?"

We sit down on the sub-benches and the interview commences. I ask when they arrived here in Spain, "We got here this afternoon, we were shooting a video in London. We actually flew out from Gatwick on an Easyjet flight. We haven´t been to Benidorm before but haven´t seen any of it yet. Wer'e heading down to Alicante for the rest of the weekend for Sam's stag do!"

What was it like playing the main stage at T in the Park? "It was great having played before to have a point of reference. When you've played the smaller stages you know how important it is to be playing the headline stage. In 2010 we played the Small Tent at T and last year the 2nd Stage, so it's good to have that."
Their music has been used in adverts for the likes of Vodafone, Meteor, clothing retailers Debenhams and Next and by Microsoft. I wonder how much say the boys have in it, "We have full control over what we do, for instance, we've been asked to do loads - I won't tell you what - that we decided not to do. We're not fortunate enough to be in Adeles' postition where we can turn down the offers all the time. In the beginning it really helped to get us known and in fact a track for Debenhams became a single when we weren't releasing it, purely on the basis of the advert. We've also had tracks for Playstation and Xbox, Fifa games and NBA which has got us known in America so it's all been good really... It's also quite lucrative. I wouldn't want to not be able to decide what we do as I'm a control freak."

I ask Kevin what the first gig was he ever attended as a fan, "I think it was probably a Radio 1
Roadshow, I can remember it came to our hometown in Ireland which was quite major as nobody ever came. Zoe Ball was the presenter and I remember seeing The Corrs."

On Wikipedia Two Door Cinema Clubs' Genre is described as Indie rock dance-punk synthpop new wave post-punk revival, I ask if he could sum up their genre in no more than 3 words. "Alternelectronica, when we first started out someone came up with that and we thought it was really good. I guess we're more Indie now, we used to be to be three guys and beats, but now we have a drummer..."

The band have 1.5 Million Likes on Facebook and growing, I ask how important Kevin thinks social media is for musicians? "It's definitely the way things are going now, but just because you have 1.5 million Likes doesn't mean they all see your posts. Facebook uses algorithms to decide how important each post is and how they show up in feeds. For example, if you add a photo or not it can make a big difference and you can actually pay to promote an individual post and decide how many hits you want it to get." Wow, so you've really thought about this? [Laughs] "Well as I said, I'm a control freak."

As his manager makes exaggerated winding notions with his hands as he's on the phone, I ask Kevin one last question, what's the most expensive item of clothing he's ever bought? "I bought a Cristian Dior jacket... the other guys still make fun of me for it, I bought it in Browns in London." Eeek! How much was it? "I'm not saying... but it was a lot."

Two Door Cinema Club played the main stage at midnight, despite being 90% Spanish the crowd sang along to every song. It was one of the most incredible performances I have ever seen, their energy was phenomenal with some amazing pyrotechnics.