While stammering schoolkids across the nation may perform a halting nativity without fear of being punched in the face, dress up a few wax dummies and suddenly it's “disrespectful” and violence is apparently called for.
Those zany christians, eh?
I'm sure they find this time of year particularly stressful, though – all those kids asking awkward questions about where Santa is in the bible…
Although, I must say, the headline “Wax Beckhams damaged in attack” is worth the price of entry in itself.
As an exercise in horizon expansion, why not go into Books Etc. and get three books you might not normally have picked up for the price of two books you might not normally have picked up?
Today, that's what I did. I was in the shop, and browsed, and checked out the books by reading the back cover and opening to a random point and reading a couple of pages. If I liked what I saw, I added it to the selection.
With the exception of book no. 3, which was recommended to me and I spotted just as I was getting desperate for a third item.
Oh, the books? They are:
- How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered The World by Francis Wheen
- Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland
- Raw Spirit by Iain Banks
I believe, on the occasions when I actually bother to think about it, that books are the major fuel for the furnace of the intellect – whether entertaining or challenging or both, as long as they make you think, they are the high-powered kerosene for the turbines of our minds.
Whereas reality TV is ground-up sheep's bones mixed with vomit, upon which the engine barely runs at all, but coughs and judders and emits big clouds of choking foul-smelling black smoke.
I won't go into what the tabloid papers are.
There I am in Tesco, wandering the aisles as you do, when I spy a sign saying “Apple Doughnut – NEW”. “Yum”, thinks I, and collects one from the shelf post haste.
On the walk back to the office, I sink my teeth into my yummy apple doughnut.
It's custard.
The bastards did it to me again.
Another digit on the binary odometer. Another millmilestone on the great road of existence. One more rung on the ladder. Another step across the rickety bridge. Another pointless and overly dramatic metaphor.
Followed by a light lunch, then possibly dinner and dancing.
A handy cooking hint for the holiday season.
When removing from the microwave something which has been heating in there for five and a half minutes, try to avoid dropping it and splashing scalding food up your arm. It's quite remarkably painful, and three days later you get some rather unpleasant-looking blisters.
Rather morbid, I know, but this is the second time in as many weeks that my commute has been delayed by a “fatality” or, as it was described this morning, a “body on the line”.
Which leads us to the conclusion that it's kind of a depressing time of year for a lot of people. I know it can be for me. The question is, what can we do about it?
I guess we could start by trying to find out why. As a singleton I can give you one reason right away, but I'm sure there are others.
Christmas songs, for example. I have previously elaborated on how much I detest Band Aid 20, but a lot of the rest are awful and made so much worse by the fact that you know you'll be hearing them every year until you die. And, as I'm probably going to hell, every year after that, too. Because that's all KDIS will be playing. That and Bombalurina.
But I digress.
So, any thoughts on ways to make the season of good cheer actually feel a bit cheery? Here are a few to get us going, in no particular order of likelihood:
- A maximum limit on the population of Oxford Street.
- Doing your shopping over the internet, thus not having to deal with the first issue at all.
- The ceremonial burning of all copies of Mistletoe and Wine.
- Booze.
For the love of all that is good and true, could everyone in the world please learn the difference between “hoards” and “hordes”?
It's really not that hard, unless you're relying on Word to tell you how to spell things, in which case, stop it. Buy a proper dictionary.
When it gets onto DVD covers in shops, it's gone TOO FAR.
New “reality” TV show: Lots of sexy gorgeous people doing sexy gorgeous things. Every week the one who has been the least sexy and gorgeous is voted out.
Title: “Survival of the Fittest”
I think it's a winner.
