LOSE weight, eat healthily, move to New York, write a novel, join a gym, see the world, stop biting my nails, get a job as a researcher on the Holiday Programme, try not to scream at the children, marry a man with the surname Onassis.

Such have been the New Year resolutions I have made during the past four decades. And there are more...

Wash my hair twice a week (once a week usually turns into once a fortnight and by then it looks something like Saddam's beard at the moment of capture), go to bed earlier (being a 'night' person does not equate with having children who leap out of bed full of the joys of spring at 7am), and go out more with my friends and husband (I didn't go out on a night at all last year and, with my matted hair and rolling eyes, I am beginning to feel like a cave-dwelling recluse).

I don't think I have ever stuck to a New Year resolution beyond January 3. To make resolutions gives you a feeling of hope, that by carrying them through, life is going to get better. But unless you are among the very small minority that really does make the effort - and has the time to do so - that is not the case.

So, this year I am not making any New Year resolutions. Not one. I am not even going to pledge to stop swearing in front of the children or to stop ogling workmen on building sites. I am not even going to attempt to lose even one pound in weight and I am certainly not going to stop bitching with my friends about the 'professional mothers' (the non-working variety) at my daughters' school.

In short, come the New Year, I am not going to change one bit.

New Year resolutions exist to be broken. What would the world be like if we all religiously stuck to them? In time, everyone would look like Kate Moss, with the sort of honed bodies and shining hair you only see in TV adverts.

No one would smoke or get drunk and everyone's skin would have a healthy glow thanks to the organically-grown food that would replace the hastily-produced burgers and kebabs many of us somehow survive on.

At the bakers and in the supermarket, cream cakes and stodgy pasties would remain on the shelves, while sales of low-calorie soup and Slimfast would rocket. Video rental stores would report falling profits, while membership of gyms and fitness centres would reach an all-time high.

It would be boring world to say the least. New Year resolutions often take away all in life that makes you happy. Take-away meals, sleeping-in until noon, slobbing out in front of the telly on a Friday night with a bottle of wine and a box of chocolates. And being able to bite your nails if you want to (a quicker, easier, form of stress relief than a visit to a reflexologist).

Yes, I'm committed to making absolutely no resolutions for 2004. So if anyone spots me slouching in front of the TV at midnight with seriously bad hair, chewed nails, a bottle of wine and a kebab please don't pass judgement.

This is me and this is how I intend to stay.

Updated: 09:11 Tuesday, December 30, 2003