2012 finds 2011 a hard act to follow

In the 1950s, journalists were a lot more honest. If there was nothing worth reporting, the BBC used to announce: "There is no news today, so here is some music instead."

Indeed, I wonder if there are any stats out there about the popularity of music TV and radio channels rising in response to the dearth of interesting news content so far this year.

Yes, it's early days, but the sum total of world news so far has been 'Republicans attempt to pick leader' 'Assad gets tough' and some non-news medical advice on detoxing. Yawn, yawn and thrice yawn.

GONE are the stories about economic crisis; VANISHED are the scenes of city squares thronging with revolutionary populations; BURIED are the scandals of the kind engulfing Murdoch and his police informants.

A tinpot view of history, espoused by the BBC, purports that Great Years are Few and Far Between. Ranking 2011 alongside 1956 (Suez, the Hungarian Revolution); 1968 (Prague Spring, Tet Offensive, French General Strike) and 1989 (Eastern European revolutions), the Beeb goes on to suggest that the years in between are drab by comparison.

Paul Foot once said, quoting Wordsworth, that we live most of the time, 'between revolutions'.

So we should expect 2012 to be dull as dishwater, with only the prospect of Boris Johnson making an arse of himself during the Olympics or the Queen falling over during the Jubilee celebrations to brighten things up. Or Spurs winning the league; that would be nice.

The fact is that a boring year would suit most people down to the ground. Just one boring year, when you got through it OK, without losing your job or your home or being mugged or run over, where nothing bad happened. Most people would take that most years.

Which may go some way towards explaining why we are being fed a diet of soporifically, stultefyingly boring news.

The fact remains that the debt crisis is still with us - the Eurozone remains in deep crisis, as does the world economy. The Middle East remains in turmoil, with the Arab Spring yet to fully consolidate its gains. The inquiry into phone-hacking is still under way.

So all the stories we had last year have the potential to reassert themselves with equal force this year. Those fault lines still run under Japan and New Zealand.

I blame Christmas. Suddenly, 2011 seemed to melt away under a pile of steaming Brussels sprouts, or evaporated into a cloud of egg-nog - we know not which.

The streets of Brighton, where I write this, are deserted. The shops are empty, the roads clear.

Everyone has forgotten about the troubles of the world and refocussed on their personal lives. A hugely informative survey in the weekend's Observer found that while the vast majority are deeply pessimistic about the economy, a good majority are yet optimistic about their own family's prospects for 2012.

Christmas, the sticky, mince-pie stained curtain that drops over the class struggle at the end of each year, has killed 2011, and its clinging, comforting tassles tie us to a dream, from which we are yet to awake screaming.