The perfect list
I knew yesterday was the start of November without even looking at the calendar.
The fucking Christmas ads are flooding the airways!
Now there have been a few in the past weeks, mostly for pantomimes, or venues for the office party [fuck but I really hated those office Christmas parties] and people saying that if you ordered your sitting room suite they would have it ready in time for The Big Day. What the fuck is it with these furniture companies? All year round you can buy and collect but suddenly from October onwards they'll hold onto your cash and deliver the furniture "in time for Christmas"? And how many people have to buy a new sitting room suite just for Christmas anyway?
So now they are battering my eyes with jolly images of families sitting around a dining table all enjoying themselves. That's a fucking lie for a start. The ads never show the kids misbehaving because they are overexcited and laced up on e-numbers. Dad is always sober and Mum is never flustered and in a foul humour. Granny in the corner is always the life and soul of the dinner and Grandad is beaming benevolence at the kids. Don't make me laugh!
Of course each and every ad is telling us that we have to buy their product if we want any chance of a purrrrfect Christmas. Buy from us and you're grand, but buy from anyone else and your day will be royally fucked. Apparently my purrrrrfect Christmas dinner has to be bought from Aldi, Lidl, Tescos, Dunnes, SuperValu and Waitrose which means a hell of a lot of turkey, which I don't like anyway.
The purrrrfect day also isn't complete unless I have stocked up on air fresheners, televisions, socks, tents, toilet paper, wrist watches and a whole load of other crap that I don't want or need. They can all rev up and fuck off as far as I'm concerned.
Why can't they be honest? Why can't they just admit that we are entering that hyped up artificial time of year when we are supposed to spend, spend and spend? Why can't they just say that yes – this is the feast of commercialism and please give us your money? An honest Christmas advertisement would be one where they come on and say that they know their product is shite, but this is the only tme of year where they think they have a chance of shifting it so could we please buy it?
I'm making a list.
My list is a list of all the advertisers, and it's the list I will not be shopping from. Just the opposite. They advertise and I won't buy.
Thank God they stopped tobacco advertisements.
And to think it all began simply in a hay-stridden stable in Bethlehem. There was a lingering smell of donkey manure, mitigated by the placid homely breath of the donkey(s) which was the next best thing to central heating. However that domestic simplicity was against a background of rancorous commercial money grubbing, according to T.S. Eliot: "…the camel men cursing and grumbling/And running away, and wanting their liquor and women…/And the cities hostile* and the towns unfriendly/And the villages dirty** and charging high prices:/ A hard time we had of it." etc. [Journey of the Magi]
You would be right to call the Christmas goodies advertisers a shower of money-grubbing camel shaggers, Grandad.
* 'hostile cities' nowadays refers to drunken assaults and gang rapes and puking on streets after the pubs close.
** I blame the county councils for dirty villages and country potholes – and litterbugs.
I think the original meaning of Christmas is long lost. Ask any kid nowadays what Christmas means and they'll say presents and Santa, but mention Bethlehem and you'll get that blank look they reserve for the senile.
"a shower of money-grubbing camel shaggers" sounds good to me. From now on I'll shout that at the television.
On December 26th the stores will remind you there are only 364 shopping days until Christmas, start your shopping now.
Of course the shop owners would love to make every day into Christmas. They do their best to send us on frantic sprees over Easter, Valentines and the rest. I wonder if there's an AdBlock bit of software for televisions and radios?!!
When the school summer holidays ended in September they had mince pies and christmas pudding in the local Asda. That's right, in fuckin' September. What's more the sell by dates ended in November.
And to think I thought that politicians had the monopoly on cretinology!
Hah! Next it'll be Easter eggs in December [get us while we're in the mood]. Bad cess to the lot of 'em.
Just looked in the cupboard – three Christmas puddings best before dates 2002, 2004 and 2007. They'll get eaten at some point. Probably solely by me, which partly explains their longevity.
Actually, in recent years I've opted more for the mini varieties, topped with that gooey opaque white cornflower custard stuff (consistency and appearance not dissimilar to something no full blooded male would ever let pass his lips). And brandy butter of course, all bought from Aldi or Lidl.
Everything is edible once you remove the green and the furry bits.
"consistency and appearance not dissimilar to something no full blooded male would ever let pass his lips"? That has just put me off Christmas puddings for life.