Happy New Year for 2014. This edition's public health prose is a personal view from a public health professional in a London local authority. We will bring future messages from different public health perspectives, organisations and functions. January is the month where people are even more sheepish than usual when they bump into me as they wait on the ground floor for the lift, or as they break into a bag of crisps in the kitchen. In February we can plan to take action as part of National Heart Month1 and walk up the stairs or eat our “five a day”. In January, however, we review the past year and look forward to the next.