The only truly surprising thing about the excessive revelry of New Year’s Eve indulgence in Fitzroy North’s Edinburgh Gardens, is that it wasn’t replicated in a dozen other neighbourhoods. Are we really surprised that scores of marauding, tanked up partygoers would gather, carouse to excess, urinate, defaecate, graffiti, and leave oceans of detritus for others to clean? The merrymakers were merely having a ‘good time’ as portrayed by our cultural exemplars. Our political leaders lack any will to sever the marketing nexus between alcohol and sport. Our civic leaders invest our taxes and rates in the never-ending annual quest for pyrotechnic supremacy. We provide free transport for the paralytic. And then the evening news leaves us in no doubt that the wildest are the winners. What can we do but clean up the mess yet again?