Locker Room:So here we are. New Year's Eve. Wandering around a familiar journalistic hinterland, listening to the sound of distant revellers, knowing that we are about to write one of those columns nobody reads, firstly because it is New Year's Eve and secondly because life is just too short.

So what to do? Why waste your good stuff? Why even pretend you had good stuff? Do you go for a series of gnomic pronouncements on the state of sport, a sort of queen's-speech job?

Or do you look forward to the year ahead, anticipating it all in a way this paper often signposts - basically warning readers that they might encounter bafflingly lame and heavy-handed jokes - "tongue in cheek"?

Or do you look back at what we like to call "the sporting year"?

As in taking a "wistful look at the high and lows of the sporting year just past"? Or my favoured option: just using a column from this time three or four years ago and changing the few names and dates.

Unfortunately, the lex-nex thingy that stores such articles for lazy journalists appears either not to be working or to have been put beyond my use by the sports editor, who is always one step ahead of me here.

There is, therefore, no honourable course of action other than ripping off somebody else's idea but presenting the larceny as a homage.

This column is a great fan of the index page in Harper's, the American magazine for those of us who like to be seen reading American magazines.

The index is just a list of figures which basically provide their own commentary and soothingly affirm many of my prejudices in life.

For instance, percentage of Nigerians living on less than $1 a day in 1985 and today respectively: 32 and 71.

Those two figures speak to that part of me which believes things always get worse.

Then again some index stats are initially baffling but ultimately life-changing. I said goodbye to Patsy and Hank and said yo, dawg, to LL Cool J when I read the following statistical couplet.

Chances that a hip-hop fan has had five or more sexual partners in the last five years according to a UK study: 2 in 5.

Chance that a country-music fan has had the above: 1 in 67.

So that's the Harper's index.

The other element for a possible column fell into place on Saturday.

Being employed here in The Irish Times requires one to be a fan of the Guardian newspaper. I say fan but I mean complete and utter mind slave.

Once a few years ago we had a big war in the union here about an in-house (as the proponents called it) or yellow-pack (as we the slavering opposition called it) training scheme for school-leavers wishing to become journalists.

It was asked at one point what precise sort of paper would kids who had worked only at The Irish Times be suitable for when they finished from this training.

"Ta-da!" said those pushing the scheme, "they could work for the Guardian!"

After that it was like arguing against sending little children to heaven.

Anyway, in the Guardian on Saturday, Tim Dowling (in the magazine part - God, the things they think of over there in Blighty to fill their lifestyle-magazine spaces) had his usual and always excellent personal-reflections sort of column, but here was the twist: he had married it into the Harper's index idea!

In terms of lifestyle journalism this was inventing, say, a double-mocha-whipped-cocaine cappuccino.

The alchemy of two handy and refreshing column ideas created a certain skittish glibness which appeals greatly to this column and is hereby loosely plagiarised.

The Year 2007 - an annual personal review in statistics.

Number of Monday morning columns written: 52.

Number which might be described as original: 2.

Number of original columns which might also be described as worth reading: 0.

Number of press conferences attended: 111.

Estimated number of original and quotable thoughts extracted at press conferences: 7.

Estimated number of thoughts, expressed as a percentage, which were actually used in post-press-conference pieces written by me: 97.

Total addition to accumulated knowledge and wisdom of mankind derived from press-conference reporting in 2007: 0.

Time, expressed as a fraction of lifetime, spent waiting for post-match press conferences given by Pillar Caffrey to begin: Half.

Average duration of a Pillar Caffrey press conference when it actually begins: 111 seconds.

Number of times to approach Dublin footballer Bryan Cullen after a game to ask for a quote: 4.

Number of times Dublin footballer Bryan Cullen said, "Yeah, okay, back in a sec," before disappearing into dressingroom: 4.

Average number of times Dublin footballer Bryan Cullen did actually come back in a sec: 0.

Number of mentions of camogie in Monday columns for 2007: 5.

Approximate number of letters and emails complaining about Monday columns being constantly devoted to camogie: 123.

Number of press releases received from national camogie body in gratitude for column being "constantly devoted to camogie": 0.

Number of press releases from Ladies Football regarding ladies' football events: 123.

Number of international rugby matches attended: 1.

Number of rugby matches of any sort viewed: 1.

Number of rugby matches attended and viewed expressed as a percentage of number of rugby matches also written about: 100.

Number of times encouraged to write more often about rugby: 0.

Number of pieces written about Steve Staunton's time as Ireland manager which included the sentiment "he's a very nice guy/he has been a great servant/it's not his fault" expressed as a percentage of total number of pieces written about Steve Staunton: 87.

Percentage of the above which also included the word "but": 100.

Percentage of pieces written about Pádraig Harrington which included the sentiment "he's a very nice guy": 99.

Number of names mentioned thus far as possible successor to Steve Staunton: 34.

Percentage of names mentioned (including Glenn Hoddle's) that make you long for return of Steve Staunton: 93.

Chance expressed in the context of a million that Eileen Drewery and Mick Byrne will work together in harmony: one.

Times when I have expressed loudly and forcibly the need to buy Sky Sports: 0.

Number of times to sigh and express deep and intense desire to be at next year's Olympics: 0.

Number of columns expressing concern about lack of exercise and sporting opportunities among the young: 3.

Number of exercise and sporting opportunities availed of personally: 1.

Percentage of those times which involved merely going back up to attic, climbing stairs in a hurry, to retrieve car keys: 100.

Number of English-columnist types ripped off: 1.