Mash Blind Date: can two people living the New Year, New You dream keep it up for a whole evening?

LUCY Parry, aged 29, and 27-year-old Jordan Gardner are both bringing entirely new personalities into 2024. Will they also find new love? 

Jordan on Lucy

First impression?

Really friendly, mentioned her step count within the first 90 seconds. I replied that I was at the gym at 7am this morning lifting weights. She countered with her not-yet-completed entry form for the Great North Run.

How was conversation? 

We had so much in common: she’s vegan just like I’ve recently become, and she’s dumping toxic relationships like I am, and we’re both in the preliminary stages of launching our own podcasts.

Memorable moments? 

When we both refused the wine list with the exact same words ‘No thanks, I’m on a sobriety journey’. We laughed and laughed. Goes to show you don’t need alcohol.

Favourite thing about Lucy? 

Her ambition. Learning Cantonese, doing her first half-marathon and spending two months in Uruguay teaching natives about recycling? Where will she find the time to even do her PhD?

A capsule description? 

Absolutely faultless. Striving for self-improvement in every area possible. To the extent that it seems slightly delusional.

Was there a spark? 

There may have been, but if I’m honest we each spent so long bragging about how brilliant we’re going to be this year that it was outshone by the radiance of our lies.

What happened afterwards? 

Well it turns out I don’t like vegan food so I was starving, and knackered from the weightlifting, and she had to get back so she could meditate before bed because she’s taken that up now, so we called it a day.

What would you change about the evening? 

Nothing really, we’re both incredibly high-powered people committed to wellness and manifesting our best selves. We literally didn’t talk about anything else. I did wonder what she was like before, say five days ago.

Will you see each other again?  

Yes. We’ve set a date – which wasn’t easy, between her piano lessons and my dance classes – and we’ll definitely turn up and report on our progress which will be considerable.

Lucy on Jordan

First impression?

He said he’s a weightlifter but hasn’t exactly got the body of one but apparently he’s just starting out. I explained I’m the same with triathlons, or will be once I get a bike.

How was conversation? 

Turn-based, in that I’d tell him about my DuoLingo then he’d tell me about learning Krav Maga then I’d tell him about my piano lessons and he’d tell me about a four-volume history of the Vietnam war he’s started. We’re both very impressive people.

Memorable moments?

He stopped me eating cheese, which he explained isn’t vegan – I haven’t got a vegan app like he has, so I didn’t realise – so we had a laugh about that. Though he fell silent when the waitress went by with a bottle of red wine and a burger. That stayed with me.

Favourite thing about Jordan? 

He’s certainly willing to throw himself into things, though I doubt they’ll put you ‘straight on the boats’ when you volunteer for the RNLI but have no maritime experience. Still, if I entertained doubts like that I wouldn’t be hitchhiking from New York to Latin America!

A capsule description? 

Just a seething mass of aspirations and commitments to becoming a better person. It was like looking in a mirror. That’s lying to you.

Was there a spark? 

I think there was, but it’ll have to wait until we’ve got fewer evening engagements. Being brutally honest that will likely be the case in less than a fortnight. Also, you know what’s good for pouring on a spark? Alcohol.

What happened afterwards? 

I walked home to hit my steps target and went to bed hungry and unfulfilled. And you know what? That stuff about giving up masturbation’s bollocks. I’ve dropped that.

What would you change about the evening? 

I would perhaps not frame some of the things I’m intending to do, or hoping to do, or sort of thinking about doing a bit, as definite things I’m definitely doing for sure. Because seeing him I kind of realised I might not and I could end up looking a dick.

Will you see each other again?  

The problem is it’ll be a massive letdown, because let’s face it I’ll have quit all this shit by then. But I reckon so will he, we’ll be ready to tell the truth and frankly I’m up for a shag.

The Archbishop of Canterbury's review of the fucking year

WAKING with a head that feels like the site of bear defecation, my tongue the size of a pillow and my eyes awash with blood but otherwise chipper, I reflect on last week’s carol service. 

I am often amused by how our choristers change the words of certain carols to mirthful effect and, to lighten up the festive season, I prepared a series of alternative titles and verses to perform at this year’s service, broadcast live on BBC2.

These included ‘While Shepherds Washed Their Cocks By Night’ of course, but also ‘Silent Shite’, ‘Oh Spunk All Ye Faithful’, ‘Wank The Herald Angels Sing’ and ‘Oh Little Town Of Cuntingham.’

I understand the broadcast was pulled after a short time and replaced with a 45-minute medley of Tom and Jerry cartoons so in a very real sense I feel we did bring joy to the world. Post-breakfast, I sip a decaffeinated coffee and reflect that 2023 allowed Prince Charles to celebrate a year as King.

And what a pig’s arse the capillaried cunt made of it, eh? Tearing a new fucking hole in the ozone layer jetting around the world to lecture people on the fucking climate crisis, caught filching money from dead Lancastrians in some medieval scheme to extort the poor, and finally appointing some ghastly, florid quack to head up the royal medical household! And all the fucking charm of a loading bay on a wet Tuesday to boot! Where’s Oliver Cromwell when you fucking need him? 

2023 saw newspaper columnist Sarah Vine opining, following an adverse exchange with a British Airways employee, that Britain was a broken place. ‘Our rivers are polluted and our streets are overrun with lunatics wielding machetes,’ she lamented.

Mother Mary’s thrust-bruised coccyx, one part complete bollocks to put the wind up senile idiots in the fucking shires and the other true, but who was it who did the polluting? Or shitting, not to put too fine a fucking point on it? Your ex-husband, that Pogles’ Wood cunt Gove and his mates, that’s who! If Britain’s gone to the dogs, that’s not fucking Woke Prince Harry’s fault! It’s your beloved fucking Tories who’ve been running down the country for years! 14 years in May, praise fucking be!

Rishi Sunak ended the year persuading the RAF to continue a £40m a year contract so he does not lose his VIP helicopter rides.

Jesus fucking Joseph, the grifting never stops with you fuckers, does it? The leeching, the corruption, the environment-destroying, the deluded sense of personal fucking entitlement, the all-round, day-in-day out, out-and-out cuntery! And then you’ve got the nerve to tub thump about scrounging immigrants trying to live every week on what you ‘earn’ in a fucking second!

Baroness Mone finally admitted that she and her husband were involved in PPE Medpro, which made profits of £60m selling PPE during the pandemic. She invited BBC viewers to sympathise with her during a harrowing time.

Why? Why was she interviewed on mainstream TV and not in a dimly lit basement room at her local fucking police station? I mean, we’re not talking about stealing baby formula here, for which the law would come down on you like a ton of bricks, we’re talking about millions of fucking pounds! And now what, eh? Back to your yacht now that you’ve cleared the air? Just once, just the fucking once I’d like to see one of you fraudsters face some consequences!

Noel Gallagher, formerly of Oasis, said he considers the Beach Boys ‘overrated’ and songwriter Brian Wilson excessively revered.

Yeah, from the very low cultural vantage point you occupy, staring far up at the Beach Boys in the firmament, you must have a hard job making them out at all! You see, the thing is the Beach Boys are up there with the fucking Beatles, which only the cretinized clothheads who worship you laughingly imagine Oasis to be. By any objective assessment you’re way down with the fucking Grumbleweeds or worse! There’s Oasis tribute bands who are better than fucking Oasis! So shut the fuck up about everything for ever, you cunt!

Finally, 2023 was the year that Rupert Murdoch passed away at the grand old age of 93.

Except it fucking well wasn’t, was it? Way to demonstrate the power of prayer, eh? I spent two solid hours on my knees last New Year’s Eve, clutching beads like a fucking left-footer, praying, praying, praying ‘let this year be the year the hideous, human life-ruining reptile pegs it. Die, die, die, die, die!’ And did he? Did he fuck! Wasps and the continued existence of fucking Murdoch! Two reasons why there’s no God!