A new year is by far the most upsetting date in the calendar

I can’t speak for you, reader, but for me no new year can be said to have begun until I’ve shed a tear. The only question is whether I shed it on the last day of the old or the first day of the new, and what in particular precipitates it. This time, I made it through the champagne, fireworks and kisses of the last night of 2013 only to be set off the following morning by the New Years’ Day concert televised live from Vienna.