From Fitzroy's Private Diary (Extract 110)

My favourite New Year’s Eve was the one I spent half-running, half-falling, my way down a foreign mountainside while being shot at by enemy agents. It really was an exhilarating battle with gravity, an exercise in my magnificent dexterity and a challenging of the fates themselves. There was no way I should have survived. But I did. The only casualty was my Oxford brogues. I now have special ones, handmade, that look smart, but are useful when slithering down sheer slopes. Needless to say, I have not had to do so for quite some time.

So, it is understandable, I hope, that I find the English New Year’s Eve celebrations somewhat tame. I once spend a Hogmanay in Scotland before I joined the service. I recall very little of it, save a lot of dancing, pretty girls and a strange dark mash (haggis). I awoke the following day with the worst headache I have ever had and two young women snoring beside me. Despite the pain, I had a feeling of contentment and of having enjoyed myself very much.

Again, the English New Year pales in comparison. I shall probably stay on at White Orchards but uncork the fine claret that I have been concealing in my room, and I shall invite Alice to join me in it on New Year’s Day while the rest of the house conducts its usual slaughter (the duck shoot). As for New Year’s Eve, I shall strain every sinew to go to bed at a reasonable hour, taking a delicious lady with me. Intimacy with the fairer sex is the only thing I have ever found that matches up to the excitement of being shot at – and indeed, often leads to that very experience should the offended husband appear.