Local man still confident of completing all 2016 New Year resolutions if he starts now

Harold resident Gavin Barker spoke to journalists this morning of his confidence that even though only a single day remains in 2016, he will still manage to achieve his perhaps optimistic set of resolutions from last New Year’s Eve.

In a wildly over-ambitious resolution frenzy as 2015 drew to a close, Mr Barker’s long list of commitments for 2016 included learning Spanish, losing four stone in weight and getting a novel published. Having started none of these with only hours remaining, his wife and friends have expressed scepticism that he will manage to get through the list. ‘I’m starting a bit late, it’s true’, Barker admitted, ‘But with a reasonably aggressive timetable today I should be able to knock all these off.’

‘I’ve ordered Spanish in 24 hours from Amazon, and I’m a fast reader,’ Barker insisted. ‘If by any chance it doesn’t arrive today I’ve arranged to borrow a neighbour’s copy. He’s only got the one on Portuguese, so I’ll have to extrapolate. Either way, I reckon within about 4 hours I’ll be able to express myself better in Spanish than Donald Trump does in English.’

‘The novel’s going to be a bit of a bugger, but once I’ve got a title worked out I should be on a roll,’ he continued. ‘I reckon it’ll have to be 200 pages – I’m thinking big font, wide margins and as many pictures as I can get away with. And perhaps a long conversation in the first chapter about the London phone book. Not aiming too high, sort of an upmarket Jeffrey Archer without the spelling mistakes. And more phone numbers. Oh, and in Spanish, two birds with one stone there!’

All in all, it seems that Barker’s biggest problem might be losing four stone in weight in a single day, especially given that he is not particularly overweight in the first place. ‘I don’t know where that one came from,’ he confessed sadly. ‘I think it might have been a typo. But I’ll be writing my Spanish novel from the treadmill, and all I’m having to eat today are tapeworms. Last resort, I’ve got a team of surgeons standing by to take a leg off. Only has to be for five minutes, they can bung it back on mañana. Ooh, get me, I’m halfway there already!’