Digby Warde-Aldam

Sifting through the heaps of discarded language and redundant memes expended in the last twelve months, it’s clear that they don’t make ‘em like they used to. Ah, for the days when clichés were built to last! Twitter now rolls out disposable buzz phrases like a chopstick factory, and all we can do is get a bit angry and forget about them. This is not to say that Neology is dead. This year gave us ‘Twerking’, which I rather like - provided it remains confined to inverted commas rather than let loose in my kitchen. Another 2013 winner is ‘Chumley’ – shorthand for laddish berks with aristocratic pretentions and red trousers. It’s useful, it’s funny and it genuinely identifies something previously unformulated as a word.

The plan to do last year’s Christmas shop at Peter Jones on 23 December was doomed from its sorry inception. I was soaked by the time I got there, my plimsolls waterlogged, kept going only by my expectation of a quiet and civilised department store, rammed to the skylights with perfect presents. Instead, I found myself spearing a path through the seething, teeming, hostile masses with my sodden umbrella, and, worse — finding its  stock all but decimated. The claustrophobia that ripped through me was so violent that I was forced to run to the toilets to hide — and even then I had to queue. I shivered in the stairwell and contemplated defeat. What do you do about all those uncles? In-laws?

I remember, during one of my last classes at UCL, the topic of conversation turned from the cultural implications of Algerian independence to the subject of life after university. Our lecturer, a grumpy ‘progressive Hoxhaist’, told us that things had never been worse, and out of the 20 or so students in the room, only one or two would have found any kind of full-time employment by the time the year was out. ‘But it’s not fair!’ cried one girl, ‘we’ve all worked so hard over the last four years, we’re all clever [speak for yourself, I thought], we all have debts and we’re just going to be ignored!’ ‘Who are you going to blame, then?’ responded the lecturer. The question was a pertinent one: who were we to blame?