New Year round-up

Well, that's Christmas over and done with, and, unless you really​ over-did it on New Year's Eve, your hangovers should also have subsided by now. But how was 2002 seen in? Well, most of us did it in the usual way, but there are always some who have to be different. Read on...

The Sun​​

The Sun reports on the 'scores of dippy revellers' near Edinburgh who celebrated the new year by jumping into the icy waters of the Firth of Forth. Tourists and locals alike took part in the 15th annual "loony dook" plunge to raise money for charity. Australian Cameron MacQueen joined in, saying that the plunge did not manage to cure his hangover, largely because he was still drunk.

New Year celebrations in the Philippines went off with a bang, and were somewhat safer than those of previous years. The island's traditional festivities, where locals fire guns and detonate firecrackers, saw only one fatality this year, compared to six last year.

The French saw the celebrations turn nasty as riots broke out in Strasbourg.

The Independent​​

An all-you-can-drink party in Belgium attended by 2, 000 revellers ended predictably with almost 20 teenagers spending New Year's Day in hospital.

The Guardian​​

New York battened down the hatches in the "biggest terrorism-prevention operation in the city's history". Despite the events of September 11, and with vastly increased security measures, where manhole covers and mailboxes were welded shut, the half a million people who converged in Times Square saw in 2002 in traditional style.

The Guardian awards Friends of Earth with press release of the week after their campaign to get people drinking local brews urged "Think local, drink global". They meant "Think global, drink local" of course.

The paper also reports on the unfortunate return home, at 5am, of a man celebrating the New Year. On his stumble - sorry - way home, he managed to fall off his garden fence and impale his pelvis on a rusty pipe three feet in length, with a one inch diameter. After being sedated by firemen, who then cut the pipe in half, the man was then taken to hospital in Barnstaple, Devon, with the remainder still stuck in his body.

The Times​​

Edinburgh and Glasgow celebrated Hogmanay with street parties attended by around 200, 000 people despite freezing temperatures. In the meantime, Sydney woke up to more bushfire worries after welcoming in the New Year with a huge firework display.

Unfortunately the festive period brings out the worst in people too:​

• The Belfast Telegraph reports that two masked men are being hunted by police after they fired gunshots in the Farmer's Home pub in the Northern Ireland town of Strabane. The attack happened in the early hours of New Year's Eve and no-one was injured.
• According to the Birmingham Post, police inquiries are now underway after a man wielding a samurai sword brought terror to a pub in Brierly Hill in the Midlands.
• Two armed robbers who made off with more than £1,000 during a raid on a pub are being hunted by police, reports thisislondon.co.uk. No one was hurt during the attack on the Jolly Cricketers, Basildon, Essex.