WELL, the celebrations are all over. Such as they were, that is, for one survey last week showed that more than 80 per cent of us had a quiet night in on New Year's Eve.

Could this be, I wonder, that we would prefer a night of execrable television to risking grievous bodily harm at the hands of the drunks and punch up merchants who use what was once a religious festival to turn the streets of Mar'ton and the like into mini Beiruts?

And yes, I am in one of my grumpier moods this morning, but I do believe I have just cause. Even the Beggarsdale WI agrees with me, because in their first debate of 2003 on Tuesday, they overwhelmingly passed a motion which declared, "This house believes that Britain is going to the dogs - again!"

It was the "again" bit that struck home with me, because there is a distinct stink of the 1970s in the air.

For those of you too young to remember that miserable decade, it was a time when serious minded people thought the UK was doomed to become a banana republic - without the bananas.

It was a decade when the Trotskyites of the trade union movement ran the land with a mixture of bluster, blackmail and downright bloody-mindedness.

We haven't quite got to the stage when working men refuse to bury the dead, but we do have firemen prepared to let people die in pursuit of an impossible wage claim. The Left has once again taken over many of our major trade unions: ask my daughter, who was stranded in Bradford for hours on Christmas Eve by an Arriva ticket collectors' strike.

The local Government workers who were given index linked pensions in the Seventies are threatening to strike too, despite the fact that they are the only people left in the land (except MPs, that is) who can still afford to take early retirement.

That's why the nearest policeman to Beggarsdale is based on the Moon: a huge chunk of the police budget goes in payment of those pensions, which were never properly funded in the first place.

And the rest of us will have to go working into our own 70s, now that bent stock market dealers in the USA have virtually bankrupted the Western world.

Other surveys took my eye over the "holiday" too. One showed that of the extra billions tight-sporran Gordon Brown is pumping into the NHS, 30 per cent cent has already gone to give staff pay rises which have in no way led to service improvements.

It was also revealed that the NHS now has more middle managers than beds - 12,000 more, in fact - which is also typical of the 1970s when bureaucracy went totally out of control.

This Government is now spending more than 40p out of every pound we earn, another statistic unrivalled for 30 years. And that's why most of us will be hit by hefty tax increases come April.

I barely dare mention sport, with England cricketers being eaten alive in Oz and soccer players asking for a mid-season break because they are "tired." Dearie, dearie me: I'm pretty tired too of this wet, miserable winter, but I'd be extremely happy to earn in a year what David Beckham takes home in a week.

However, there is a world rugby cup in Oz this coming autumn and this is the only ball game in which England has a realistic chance of beating the world. I can dream, of course, but what shall I do between now and October?

* The Curmudgeon is a satirical column based on a fictitious character in a mythical village.