I hope you have all had a wonderful start to the New Year, and long may it continue. Having hibernated for the Christmas period, whereby I lost all track of everything including what day of the week it was (embarrassingly I had to refer to the radio times to keep me on track) in a haze of chocolate and glitter I finally resurfaced to inhale the new year and catch up with the recent happenings in the world.

One story that I’m sure you are all aware of is the continuing issues surrounding refuse collections across the UK. Apparently due to a combination of the weather and the festive period there is a vast back log of rubbish awaiting collection in many pockets of the country. I do however hope that none of you are suffering as a result.

Personally I have been incredibly fortunate enough to avoid this affluence of effluence currently plaguing many homes and my own relationship with trash has started somewhat differently. Last week at DFB I was introduced and consequently read Andy Mulligan’s Trash…voraciously, cover to cover, I might add.

Trash follows the tale of three young boys, who discover a dangerous secret which will lead them through a captivating adventure involving a government conspiracy, police brutality, and the harsh realities of poverty stricken families who serve their life sifting through foul smelling, rat infested, dangerous landfills. The three must evade police capture using only their quick thinking and wits to ensure the philanthropic wish of an innocent murdered man is complete. 

It seems a difficult question but after reading the book and what with the recent trash related news, I felt inclined to ask myself could I really imagine myself spending every waking hour living in, on and with trash? Sleeping in it? Walking in it? Breathing it? Living it? Even being it?

This is the harsh reality of Andy Mulligan’s Behala – ‘rubbish town’ the scene of his beautifully written novel Trash, and the home of the three boys that I fell in love with; Raphael, Gardo and Rat. It is an honest and touching world that Mulligan draws you into, that is captivating in all of its vivacity and humbling in its reality.

Yet for me personally, in addition to its originality of the story, it was the relationship between the three boys and their unfailing endeavour to reach the end of their journey that I found most striking.  Now perhaps this is just one final surge of sugar in my system from the insufferable quantities of sweets that I consumed over the festive period, but this got me thinking about the New Year and the obligatory resolutions that we all endeavour to keep.

As Mark Twain once said when referring to the New Year ‘Now is the accepted time to make regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual’. Perhaps this has proved true for many of you as we are now halfway through January. If this is the case and you are struggling to keep those resolutions, may I offer a suggestion? Try not to worry, read a good book, lay aside some spare time for yourself and curl up to something that will set you glowing…if you need any suggestions I whole heartedly suggest Trash, it’s not just any old rubbish.