This year will be different, I promise!

Well we’re back. The year when everything is going to change. I sat there with my bottle of scotch on New Year’s Eve, contemplating the year that was and set down a whole raft of New Year’s resolutions. I figure the best way of ensuring they become reality is to share them with as many friends as I can. Which leaves many of you lot out.

I promise to not find a cure for the Ebola virus in my coffee cup. Forget the little pixies that creep about at night tidying your bedroom and finishing off your work. My buggers wander about sprinkling various single cell organisms into my coffee cup. Springing up in the morning is some kind of hybrid fur-coat-day-of-the-triffids creature that tends to leap on unsuspecting yours truly in a dust storm of green and grey spores.

I have the only coffee mug registered as a Hazchem industry. Yes, this year I promise to rinse it out. Not sure when, maybe June the 17th or possibly some time in September — but it will get a rinse.

I promise to ring people back, even those I don’t want to talk to. The shock of 17 people showing up at my front door at home on Christmas day with the comment, “We thought we’d find the bastard here today”, has left me with a sneaking suspicion that I may be a tad difficult to get hold of sometimes.

However, if your resolutions differ, there are a number of legitimate little tricks one can employ to ward off those particularly niggly clients who seem to come back from their holidays more irritable than ever.

Frequent scratching of the genitalia usually sees their interest diverted from the importance of seeing you to wondering whether the coffee mug spores have somehow found a home.

Spitting when using the letter P is a good one too. Particularly if you’ve just eaten a dry biscuit. There’s nothing like the distraction of a piece of Sao hurtling towards the left cornea to take a customer’s mind off the important things in life.

If you want to slow down the calls for an extended period, perhaps when going on holidays or for a few days of peace and quiet, get your mate to answer the phone, “Special Agent Adams, Australian Federal Police, hello...”, in the days leading up to your break. Sure to evoke a laugh or two and guaranteed to lift the sales of the local daily newspaper.

I promise not to give ‘Adviser Service’ people a hard time and to be truly objective. This will be tough. I have an old pillow that I use to release my frustrations on and by crikey, it had a fair old belting already last year.

I’m beginning to wonder if the ‘service’ part has more to do with the animal husbandry meaning rather than what I thought it was.

Nonetheless, it certainly is refreshing and strangely satisfying to know that the fund managers taken over by the big banks have adopted the service standards of the banks rather than the other way around. It seems that some of us will remain busy for the rest of the year.

Now, not all of them fall into this category. Colonial First State is a shining example of a Bank/Fund Manager that knows how to treat their advisers; instant replies to queries, generous brokerage and trails, extensive product range, such diversity and flexibility. Thanks for the Christmas present Steve and Dana. Other fund managers should note, see how easy it is to get favourable coverage in a national paper?

I will try and suppress my road rage. The only exceptions to this will be:

n Drivers who cruise along at 10km under the speed limit and who seem to think that a flashing high beam behind them means they should slow down.

n Tarago vans and Volvos on the road between the hours of 7am and 2am. The designated time for these vehicles to be on the road should be between 2:01am and 6:59am each day and only if travelling in the opposite direction to me.

n People over the age of 70 named Bert who have a 1974 Rambler with Venetian blinds in the back window and a sticker with an Esso tiger still intact. These folk should be simply offered to the French for underground nuclear testing.

n All of the above if they happen to be high-net-worth clients on the way to my office.

I will try and see more movies and be a little more open minded about stuff my kids watch. Perhaps I don’t watch enough TV these days and maybe I’m getting a little paranoid. It seems to me that perversion and plagiarism is finding its way into all sorts of things.

Notable instances from 2001 include:

Coyote Ugly. No idea what this was about, but if it’s an American rip-off of the Azaria Chamberlain story it’s a disgrace.

I remember reading one commentator’s description of Meryl Streep in Evil Angels when she discovered what has happened. She rushes from the tent shouting: “The barbie, the barbie, someone’s stolen the barbie!”.

Harry Potter. Drugs. Get it? I’ve seen shorts of the thing. Hallucinating that pictures and stairs are moving and the dog’s got three heads. Apparently the Philosopher’s Stoned.

Shrek. A donkey with an attitude. Perhaps this could become the mascot of a number of professional associations?

Lord of the Rings. As Ali G would say, “’nough said”.

No, 2002 is going to be a beauty. All we have to do is hang on for the ride!