The end of a year is a natural time to reflect on your life’s achievements — or lack thereof — and in the cheese-and-wine haze of December, it’s easy to find yourself thinking morosely about missed opportunities or days unseized. Compiling a bucket list might seem like a natural step but as actor Griff Rhys-Jones recently pointed out, overachieving hyperactivity won’t make you happier, just busier.
Instead he delineated a list of things he’d rather not do, despite the fact that everyone says he absolutely must — a f*** it list, as it were. Which made the entire internet realise that everyone should have one.
To get you inspired, here’s what’s on ours…
Katie Strick
I will never get into bouldering, no matter how many times you tell me that Harry Styles does it. I’ll try most sports in the name of a laugh, but spend my Thursday night getting chalky leggings and callusy hands while stretchy ballerina types and men with top-knots judge me from ten (two) metres below? I’d rather abseil off a skyscraper into the Thames. At least then I wouldn’t have to wear those ridiculous little toe shoes.
Along with toe shoes, road trips can, as far as I’m concerned, also be consigned to life’s dustbin. I’ve eaten a cricket and jumped out of a plane from 15,000 feet. I’ll even consider ziplining over an alligator-infested lake, if you ask me nicely enough. Take a road trip, though? No thanks. I’m still scarred from the one I attempted through Central America over a decade ago. Turns out trying to tick off six countries in as many weeks isn’t as romantic as it sounds when the reality means driving 800 km a day and squatting at depressing roadside gas stations, no matter how good the playlist. Does anyone actually enjoy spending precious days of annual leave staring out of a window — or do they actually just like telling everyone how many countries they covered when they get home? There’s a reason Thelma and Louise drove off a cliff at the end…
Alexandra Jones
I once went to a sex party in a polyamorous commune in an industrial estate in Willesden Junction. I went with an open mind but soon realised that even the most aesthetically pleasing people are rendered unappealing when they’re writhing around on a mattress on the floor. Don’t listen to anyone who says you need to try group sex one time before you die — a boujie venue and silk sheets won’t make a group of middle aged Surrey swingers any more sexy. Doctor Who can also get in the bin — never seen an episode and never plan to, there’s something too cardboard and lo-fi about it.
Martin Robinson
Anything in life billed as a ‘must’ obviously has to be avoided at all costs – marriage, board games, death. Go travelling probably tops my f*ck it list though, the kind of fake-risk life experience that defines most bucket lists. Basically a tour of the world’s worst accommodation promoted by credit card companies, the only kind of growth you get from going travelling is the kind that itches. Skinny dipping is another one, next level shrivelled grossness polluting beach habitats, instigated by opportunistic groomers telling drunk students that they should ‘be free’. Swimming with sharks is another ocean-based one; if I see shark, I’m not going to swim with it, I’m going to shoot it with a blunderbuss. Take LSD: staring in horror at the carpet for nine hours is not my idea of a good time, but sure, you dribblers have opened the doors of perception. Also own a sports car? I don’t need the world to know I’m middle aged. And sky diving: putting my life in the hands of someone else’s packing skills is a thrill I can do without.
Suzannah Ramsdale
Lord of the Rings. I’m just not that into hobbits, does that make me strange? I would rather apply Donald Trump’s fake tan than spend even a minute watching anything high fantasy (that includes all 57 of the Harry Potter films and the interminable Game of Thrones). People (mostly men) are evangelical about J.R.R. Tolkien’s world of wizards, dwarves and elves and it only makes me dig in deeper. While we’re on terrible ways to spend time, scuba diving is up there. I’m not entirely sure what The Bends is but I do not want it. Nor do I want to run out of oxygen in the depths of the ocean, or be anywhere near peckish sharks. I will also never own a dog. Almost nothing about it appeals: dog hair, dog fleas, dog poo. I do understand the draw of unconditional love, but the idea of milking a dog’s anal glands seems like too high a price to pay. Skiing is out. My bones are too brittle and hurtling out of control down an icy mountain is not my idea of a good time. Sadly, I don’t think I’ll ever learn a language, though not for a lack of trying. My husband is Spanish and I have spent hundreds in lessons over the years and have got not much further than ‘donde esta el bano’. I raise my white flag. Spanglish for the win.
Hayley Spencer
Driving is a solid ‘no thank you’, from me. I have never had a single driving lesson. Yes, really. Well, other than briefly sitting behind a wheel and stalling in a friend’s car in a camping site car park aged 25. And ten years later I still don’t have the drive to drive. No matter how many people tell me it’s an essential life skill. I grew up in Greater London meaning I could stave off learning in my teens in favour of getting the bus, and despite the tube eaters and man spreaders I’m still happy getting public transport — as long as I have my noise cancelling headphones on. Plus, who doesn’t want to be a passenger princess on long journeys? I’m very happy to bring the snacks, compile the playlist and chip in for petrol. Oh and on the topic of getting from A to B: I don’t want to ride a bike either. The helmet hair, being the subject of drivers’ road rage — it’s not for me, and nor is the Lycra. I am a seriously uneasy rider. And if I can just stick it out until 60 I’ll get my freedom pass.
Nancy Durrant
Please spare me any of your prosecco. It's not an alternative to champagne, it's a completely different drink; in most freely available forms it's disgusting, and gives you a brain-shrivelling headache. This isn't snobbery, I promise — I'm a big fan of the £8.99 Lidl Cremant, which is just nicer (I don't know anything about wine, can you tell). I just can't bear that sickly stuff anymore. Please send champagne.
Katrina Mirpuri
Puppy yoga is an absolute no for me. I love a cute puppy as much as the next person, but this is taking the piss! Dogs don’t belong in a yoga studio. Can we normalise not appropriating yoga for weird western marketing gimmicks. Get lost you Lululemon loving weirdos. I’ll stick to my Vinyasa thanks. Similarly, there is The Fat Duck. Heston Blumenthal’s much hyped 14-course tasting menu genuinely baffles me. Spending £300 on bacon flavoured ice cream does not give you a personality. People always brag about how amazing it is, but I have zero interest in the exaggerated theatre of a meal like this. Let me eat my dinner in peace please. “Let’s go ice skating!” is a phrase I dread. Do I want to freeze my arse off whilst attempting not to fall over and break a bone? Absolutely not. The rinks are always packed and people just go round and round in circles. I just want to drink mulled wine and watch people fall over.
Robbie Griffiths
As I’ve entered the long tunnel of my 30s with a strict policy of managed physical decline, I’ve noticed a new breed of fitter and stronger male appearing among my contemporaries: the marathon running iron-man. These sleek specimens think nothing of dashing 20k every Sunday morning, in preparation for a marathon in some European city or other. They cycle an hour each way to the office on expensive bicycles, their faces flushed with mysterious endorphins, while the rest of us try to avert our gaze.
It's a slippery slope: you run one marathon, and you only want more. I recently read about a 62 mile race on the South coast that people apparently do for fun, where one lucky contestant described trudging for 18 hours overnight through torrential rain. Some of these events are said to involve swimming sections too. So, high up on my list of things I plan never to do before I die is a marathon.
Then again, I don’t have kids yet. I’ve noticed that extreme exercise in men seems to correlate with having children – as keeping unnaturally fit means they have a bulletproof excuse for leaving the house for as long as possible at the weekend. Get back to me in a decade…
David Ellis
Christ the Redeemer: I’m told Rio de Janeiro is quite the place — a World Heritage Site with bossa nova and beaches, samba and Santa Teresa, carnival and, er, crime. And then there’s Christ The Redeemer, often cited as one of the new seven modern wonders of the world. Except — it’s not that much of a wonder, is it? There’s no mystery — we know who designed it, how it was built, how much it weighs, its scale (and granted, he’s a hefty boy). It’s not especially old. It’s big, but is it beautiful? Those eyes, man. Never trust a man without pupils. Some see a work of art, I see a concrete lightning rod plonked on top of the Corcovado. People say the size is humbling, but the Statue of Liberty is two-and-a-half times its height; India’s Statue of Unity is more than six times as tall. I can be humbled elsewhere. The idea of trekking up a mountain for this? Maybe. Very cool if you’re into Jesus, I’m sure. But me? Not so much.
George Chesterton
I don’t want to befriend other dads. I don’t want to be introduced to rugby dads, football dads, drama dads, karate dads, swimming dads, music dads or any other permutation of school-related dads. Not even the dads of my children’s best friends. This is always presented as an “opportunity” to meet new people, on an entirely fact-based analysis of my social life (I don’t have one anymore) and of how much easier it would be for my wife and children if I accepted at least a short-term membership of this club. But I don’t want to make small talk about sport, holidays, schools or — when the barrel must be well and truly scraped — congestion on the roads. “The traffic is terrible today, isn’t it?” is the alpha and omega of dad white noise.
It might “look” selfish for me to scorn every chance to meet new people and broaden my social network, but if anything I’m doing everyone else a favour
OK, it might “look” selfish for me to scorn every chance to meet new people and broaden my social network, but if anything I’m doing everyone else a favour. Much as my wife likes to be friendly and engaging (she’s very good at it), were I to follow her example and try to be likeable we might find ourselves in the invidious position of having to spend quality time with another couple and I know, deep down, that’s not what she wants. My children don’t want it either. A friendship between me and the parents of their friends would be the cringe equivalent of Ragnarök. As for the other dads, they are thinking exactly the same thing about me.
Lara Olszowska
I like to think I’m an adventurous person but there are a few things I will never experience. Inferno’s nightclub on Clapham High Street is one of them. I don’t care that Margot Robbie went there that time she was living in a flatshare in Clapham right before Wolf of Wall Street came out. It’s never going to be somewhere I “ended up last night” – or any night, ever. If you’re asking me why, you’re part of the problem. I will never be enthused by scuba diving. I will get through my life just fine without having plunged to the depths of the sea with however many metres of water above my head, the fear of finite access to oxygen and the possibility of encountering sharks, thanks very much. I am never going to read War and Peace. This isn’t an attack on Leo Tolstoy, one of the greatest Russian authors to have ever lived. This is an attack on a book that is 1440 pages long. Maybe it’s because TikTok has killed our attention span and we all apparently have ADHD. Maybe it’s because I would rather read more books in a year than one very long one. I suppose if I start reading 4 pages a day now, I’ll be done by next Christmas.
Claudia Cockerell
When girls show their friends pictures of boys they fancy, so comes the old adage: “they’re way better in real life”. The Northern Lights are the opposite. Yet ask someone who’s seen them what it was like and their eyes will widen. Wordlessly, they will whip out their phone and scroll through a litany of photos that their guide AirDropped them. They will then implore you to go and see them at your earliest convenience. Don’t fall for it. Someone confessed to me recently that they are actually a bit crap – the green isn’t even that green and they only last a few seconds at a time. All those extraordinary photographs of the Northern Lights are taken with an expensive camera on the long exposure setting. It’s like when you see a photographer’s picture of the night sky and think, why can I see the literal rings of Saturn in this photo when I can only see about twelve stars in real life? The truth is, most people just aren’t quite ready to admit that the vast expense and effort of voyaging to the Arctic Circle, only to loiter around in minus fifteen degree weather waiting for some lacklustre flashes in the sky that might not even appear, maybe wasn’t worth it. So anyone with a hankering to see the Aurora Borealis, save yourself the trip to Tromsø. They’re way better on Instagram.
