FOR one week only, Mystic Pete is opening up Old Magill’s Almanac, in the hope of sprinkling some Anglo-Irish hokum on the coming months.

If New Year’s resolutions still hold sway (and I know it’s the fervent prayer of every newspaper ad manager from here to Newquay) then come in, pull up a pew, shake off the travails of 2016.

Like Disney wishes, you really only need three. Fewer is insincere, a greater challenge could well be beyond our meagre willpower.

Maybe to begin with, whether a slimmer, fitter, more sobre or less spendthrift version of you is a possibility, make that promise to yourself first, rather than Facebook, Twitter or a Just Giving page. Add that air of authenticity.

This dovetails with the second suggestion – for many a hefty chunk of 2017 will be spent in the cyber half-life.

And with such spontaneity, occasional communal spirit and the sheer speed of the medium, social media establishes time and again its intrinsic value.

Just try to recall that potential and consider every interaction as being akin to someone sat opposite you at the same table. Online manners maketh the (wo)man.

And unless it’s a close friend or relative, mourn the passing of the famous with due deference to their place in your life.

Let’s derail the self-obsessed express before it gets a head of steam in 2017.

  •  Rather belatedly, as if somehow it wasn’t their decision all along, the Labour hierarchy has lurched into action over the libraries fiasco.

Deputy leader Cllr Graham Friend and assorted cohorts have waded into the debate.

Fair play to them but it’s Tony Higgins ‘incredulity’ which trumps all-comers. Cheap and yawnsome political point-scoring aside.

The executive member for cultural services (including libraries) is aghast that Warrington South MP David Mowat has not shared the contents of his LiveWire briefing on our literary fate.

Firstly Mr Mowat is an MP – he’s entitled to some preferential treatment. Regardless of the amateurs’ delusions of importance.

If his Warrington North counterpart exercises a different prerogative, as outlined previously, that’s a perfectly legitimate approach also.

But crucially, whether this is a fact worthy of a general broadcast or not, why is the executive member in question not being given a steer on the operator’s thinking?

Not officially, probably not even on the record, but a line of communication not dependent on one of your Conservative rivals.

This is Politics 101 and it’s incomprehensible if old hands like Terry O’Neill and Prof Broomhead haven’t been having these conversations, even at ‘arms length’, months ago.

  •  Festive deadlines dictated the post-Boxing Day outing to the SS, to renew hostilities with Widnes’ dwindling band of loyalists, was just beyond this column’s grasp last week.

Standard over-indulgences hasn’t helped my half-formed ‘Ryland’s star/rising star’ analogy translate beyond a whisky-fogged noggin for the superlative Harvey Livett.

Whatever his prime position, if he’s offering some competition in our centres, welcome aboard Harvey.

Another couple of bright sparks in the ever-improving Morgan Smith and Jack Johnson nearly made it worth the hypothermia.

(The lack of heart for the traditional festive derby encounter among the home faithful should be a concern for those of a Chemics’ disposition.) The long and short of it, another year of watching, waiting and dreaming.

We wouldn’t have it any other way really.