EVERY New Year, while we're taking it easy at home, I settle myself down to read the paper. And every New Year. I ask myself the same question: is underwear the key to the future?

In the first week of every new year, it's the same old thing - every magazine, every newspaper, even television programmes - all doling out advice intended to change your life. And what's always top of the tips on self-improvement?

It's not, as you'd perhaps expect, joining Weight Watchers, taking up a stimulating hobby or doing charity work. No, every year it's the same tip: "organise your undies drawer."

This act is supposed to make you feel cleansed, invigorated, renewed, ready for anything. You're instructed to throw away all your laddered tights, holey socks and sad-looking bras.

In the words of the experts, "cull any underwear you'd be embarrassed for your best friend or doctor to see" (this is intriguing in itself - since when have best friends and GPs featured above boyfriends and husbands?).

I acted on this advice a couple of years ago and, had I followed it scrupulously, I'd have ended up keeping just three items - a pristine pair of Totes toasties (a much-unwanted Christmas present), some lacy cream stockings bought for a wedding and a revolting cerise G-string (a 40th birthday present from a well-meaning but misguided friend).

All, I might add, NEVER seen by my GP, nor likely to be unless he's suddenly replaced by a devastatingly handsome locum who sends me for liposuction on the NHS, then loves my stunning new hips so much that he offers to take me to Paris for the weekend.

So what is the next step on the road to a brighter future? "It won't cost much to replace the discarded items," the reader is told. Obviously these life-transforming gurus haven't seen the price of bras these days.

Mine may look like they've been through a shredder and give as much support as my husband offers whenever I've had a bad day at work, but at £15-odd a time, I'm making do. Knickers don't come cheap either, particularly those reinforced steel ones that iron out post-Christmas flab.

An underwear drawer is surely in the same state as any other drawer. We must all have sweater drawers that contain misshapen old jumpers and hideous Fair Isle knits from well-meaning great aunts.

We must all have wardrobes wherein hang dresses three sizes too small and jackets worn once in the past decade. And everyone has a so-called odds-and-sods drawer in the kitchen full of rusty batteries, half-perished elastic bands and grimy Post-It notes.

Yet in the scheme of things, none of these matter. The underwear drawer is the root of all that is undesirable in our lives. I dare say I would feel better if, every Sunday evening, I didn't have to rake through acres of bobbled, Nora Batty-style woolly tights to find a pair I can wear for work.

I dare say I would feel more confident if I had a selection of fabulous bras that didn't make me seek refuge under the baggiest jumpers in the world.

And I'm sure I would feel less stressed if I opened the drawer to find a sea of white in place of the usual grey.

But as the basis for a new beginning? I don't think so.

Now the wine rack - that's really important. I'll feel a lot more comfortable and a lot happier when I've removed the empties and re-stocked for the tough weeks ahead.