Forget Dry January: give up social media instead

Any moment now it will begin – and then it won’t stop for a month. Because as we enter the new year, the twin horsemen of the joyless apocalypse – the anti-booze and anti-meat lobby – pounce upon the January blues like a starved dog on the Christmas leftovers. And they are merciless.

Give up drinking for the month, they’ll shout – that’ll really help you through the darkest days of the year. Or, better still, become a vegan for 30 days – oh, the horror of ‘Veganuary’ – and forgo meat, fish and dairy products at precisely the same time as almost nothing is growing out of the wintry, fallow soil in our hemisphere. Yes, that makes sense. About as much sense as asking Prince Andrew for a lecture on integrity.

But instead of embracing either of these absurd fads, there is something you can give up this January that really will do you good.