I am currently in a place of emptiness. Nothing of any great innovation, interest or importance happens… and before you ask – I am not trapped inside the mind of Katie Price, and nor have I gone for a holiday to Slough. I am instead talking about the short period that exists between Christmas and the New Year.
Quite what we are supposed to do during this four day period between Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve is anyone’s guess. Having previously helped to stimulate the retail industry in the run up to Christmas and then the alcohol industry during Christmas, I now find myself helping out the sitting-on-my-arse-starring-blankly-at-the-television industry during this four day period.
It would be nice if something more meaningful could happen, perhaps in future years a major golf tournament could be organised, it would last four days so would therefore be ideal. Of course playing golf in this kind of snow and frost would be far from prefect and all participants should have either yellow or red balls – and to be honest, if that’s the case, then I think said participant would probably rather miss the golf tournament and instead pay a visit to the doctor… particularly if they are female.
Golf, understandably, doesn’t make it into the television schedules around Christmas time, so instead comedy specials are normally on offer; in the old days, The Two Ronnies and Morecambe and Wise were the staples of Christmas Day television. This year Ronnie Corbett did his own show, The One Ronnie, and Morecambe and Wise did nothing – presumably using their usual pisspoor excuse that they had both been dead for over ten years. That said, for anyone prepared to stay up late, there was some first rate comedy on Sky – Australia were attempting to play cricket, and presumably in a tribute to Morcambe and Wise… their batsmen played in a manner which suggested that they had also been dead for over 10 years.
Although in terms of comedy, you can’t beat the woefulness of Christmas cracker jokes. Recent research has suggested that it is essential to have really bad cracker jokes, that way no-one will feel left out by not getting the joke – I’m guessing a similar rationale is used for making policies in the current Government. As such and in keeping with the general content of this ‘blog, I feel it is only appropriate to list some of the Christmas cracker jokes I came across this year:
- What is the difference between a computer with a broken hard drive and England goalkeeper Robert Green? One of them doesn’t save anything… and the other one is a computer with a broken hard drive.
- What do Piers Morgan and a chef who keeps dropping his pancakes have in common? They are both useless tossers.
- How may policeman does it take to crack an egg? None… it fell down the stairs.
- What is the difference between Frank Bruno and Michael Barrymore? One has been battered around the ring… and the other one is a boxer.
- Why did Nick Clegg cross the road? Because he said he wouldn’t.
Christmas crackers are however just one of the many traditions that adorn Christmas, another such tradition is putting Christmas presents in a stocking. This tradition, allegedly, originates from when Santa was visiting the home of a poor elderly man and his three younger daughters - obviously they are younger, if they were “older daughters” then the man should have probably asked serious questions as to whether the children were Fathered by himself.
As the man was unlikely to accept charity, Santa had to be discreet about where he hid the presents for his daughters, those presents being a bag of gold coins for each daughter. Thinking with a clear and logical mind, despite probably having already drank many glasses of sherry, Santa put the gold coins into the girls’ stockings, which were hung up above the fire to dry out. Whilst this was a nice gesture, it does give an insight into what Santa gets up to on the other 364 days of the year, perhaps he regularly puts money into ladies’ stockings in strip clubs? It certainly gives a different meaning as to exactly what “Lapland” is – although I think any stripper would probably object if Santa’s method of payment was to put numerous coins into her underwear…
Perhaps one of the most endearing aspects of Christmas is that all of a sudden many people change their attitude and everything somehow gets Christmas crow-barred into it – be it Christmas lights in the window, or your local delicatessen renaming itself “Cheeses of Nazareth” for the entire month of December.
On top of the renaming and redecorating things, Christmas is the season of goodwill and one can easily spend the two to three weeks preceding Christmas getting out of all sorts situations simply with the words “let me off please, it’s Christmas”… a few weeks ago I was walking through a shopping centre and a Christmas pudding on roller skates crashed into me, the Christmas pudding laughed it off and skated away thinking that that “because it was Christmas” his action were acceptable. Personally I thought his actions were unacceptable – just like vandalising the Cenotaph and then claiming that, despite being a history student, you weren’t aware of what the monument was.
Whilst I did manage to come up with the witty response of “I would like to douse you in brandy and set you on fire”, said response lost its effect as it came to me about half an hour later and I was the only person in the room at the time. That said, such an event shouldn’t detract from the fact that Christmas puddings are interesting little things, where else could you get such a high content of fruits and alcohol? – other than a Michael Barrymore party…
On the whole, food in general plays a large part in the Christmas experience for many people. For some reason at Christmas, quite a lot of people illogically think it’s appropriate to fill up a bowl with hard shelled dried fruits, such as pistachios and cashews… they must be nuts. More bizarrely, there was also a story recently regarding the supermarket Morrisons, whom apparently requested that a squirrel taste-test various nuts to see which were the nicest and therefore included in Morrisons’ selection boxes of nuts… Morrisions did miss one important trick though… they forgot to ask Eamonn Holmes to do the same thing with the selection boxes of chocolate…
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