Another year bites the dust as most of us, I’m sure, shake our heads, smile wryly and wonder where the hell it all went! Can those 365 days really have gone by so quickly? Will the next year disappear just as fast? Yes and yes! Still, we can now pause for breath, make a mental note of our resolutions for the new calendar year and start all over again.

Every year there is a common wish that the world’s peoples can somehow get along together and live in peace and harmony. Sadly, it’s more a forlorn hope than a realistic wish but we mustn’t stop hoping. If only people the world over could realise the true value of life, the value of their own lives as well as those of others. If they could realise that life doesn’t really last that long so why not try to enjoy it and let others do so too. It really is simple and it is the simple things in life that can make us happy be it a cheerful blackbird on a roof top or the unbridled laughter of a child playing with his friends in the back garden.

A couple of days ago, I was sat outside a café, enjoying the sunshine and listening to some relaxing, happy up-tempo music, when a woman nearby began to sway, slowly, subtly and unashamedly to the rhythm. It was a spontaneous expression of joy that comes natural to human beings. That’s what people do when they are happy, they laugh, they sing and they dance.

Sadly, there are those within our societies – fanatics from a darker age – who preach that singing and dancing are the work of the devil and are examples of the debauchery of a corrupt decadent world. They would rather our bright, beautiful and wonderful world be smothered by the cruel discipline of their religious bigotry, forcing us to live for ever more in darkness and misery.

They are wrong and misguided and we must not allow their primitive, prehistoric ideology to overcome and destroy us. This is our world, these are our countries and this is the way we choose to live. We must protect our lifestyle and our people with every force available to us. The dancing lady must be free to sing and dance whenever the mood takes her.

A Very Happy New Year to us all!