Once again it is that time of year. The time when shops are crowded with self-seeking, pushy, pig ignorant folks preparing to celebrate the time of goodwill to all men. The time of year when shopkeepers raise their prices so they can reduce them later by a fraction, always calling it a ‘great saving’ before Xmas is over. The time of year when daft folks spend thousands of pounds covering the outside of their house with fairy lights and plastic Santa's. Always claiming they do it for charity, and not just because they are stark staring bonkers!
This is the time of year when countless TV adverts are stuffed full of snow scenes, often Victorian. Ignoring totally that it never snows at Christmas, that snow is bloody awful stuff, and that the cheery Victorians displayed actually died in their twenties of Rickets, consumption or malnutrition! We wish you a merry Christmas, oh yes indeed! Come try carol singing at my door in Victorian dress oh yes!
Apart from the requirement to spend vast sums of money that does not exist, on goods that are not worth the expense, on kids that will forget them almost immediately and adults that give back presents that come nowhere near the value of the gifts handed to them, thus leaving one considerably out of pocket, apart from that, Christmas can be a happy time. Unless you take sick, fall down the stairs or have lost your keys/wallet/mind! All of which are possible at this time of year!
The arrival of Christmas means of course that another year is nearly finished. Once again the hair has turned a more blatant gray, the stiffness in the muscles increases, football players earning £40,000 a week look like children, policemen call you ‘dad’ instead of ‘oi!’ and the energy levels that once took you up hill and down Mrs Dale have gone and left you exhausted while watching televised football. This weariness results in an ever increasing irritation at the amount of ‘pap’ pedalled as worthwhile in the press or media. Societies incessant demand for meaningless trivia sticks in the throat like Moms apple pie. And we know what sort of cook she was! ‘Reality shows’ showing as much reality as a six pound note, find audiences in the millions. While most tend to be small minded, pig ignorant adolescents with malformed brains grown ups and intelligent folk have been known to watch, with glazed eyes, the deviants, attention seekers and psychopaths who thrill televisions high earners so much.
‘Why Should Britain Fear!’ as they used to say.
The high heat of summer saw an opportunity to obtain a red skin and itchy arms for a while. Holidaying by trundling the bike five miles up to a local village of wife swappers and business frauds made for variety. Usually this occasion brings contact with drug dealers and ‘Eastender’ species. You have met them. These are the folk that complain about those foreigners (e.g. blacks) who have moved into the area. To avoid contamination with such immigrants these folks roll up their ‘Daily Mails’ and run off to the Costa Brava to mix with thousands of others of similar mind. No curries in Spain mate, just good old fish and chips!
The accommodation continues to inspire love and devotion. Except the tiles falling off the bathroom wall into the bath, when I am sitting reading my books there. The draught round the bath since the failed attempt to line the rim has been more noticeable as the outside temperature has fallen. The video plays now, one day it will once again record, maybe. I would Google for instructions or repair on the PC but that collapsed and left me with a small laptop, which has several troubles which googling does not answer. The building itself does have a strange smell now, one I had not noticed before. My neighbour mentioned that this has been noticed only since the washing machine broke down. He moved recently. The machine is still broken....
Another Christmas bringing to an end another year of joy and happiness. This leaves us looking forward to another of the same.
Another year of mistakes and breakdowns, of disruption and those needless police raids just before dawn.
Another year off sitting in the park with a can of ’Special brew’ and muttering and growling at passers by.
It’s tradition!
Another year looms bringing the opportunity to be caught outside in a thunderstorm wearing nothing but summer wear, the same summer wear now worn for several years. Another year to find Visa bills falling through the door in a heap, another year of ‘Asbos’ caused by sitting on that bench in the park, of late night noise from folks nearby, of sniffling away at that cold that has hung around since 1987. Another year of finding the milk has run out and the shops have closed, another year of past intimates telling of their success once they have moved on. Another year of wandering round the market at closing time picking up moth eaten cabbages and such for lunch. Another year to look forward to the same as the last, and the one before that, and on and on and on and on back to time immemorial.
Another Christmas. Another cup of ‘OXO’ followed by a mouldy tangerine. Another attempt to drown sorrows in that £1:25 wine form Somerfield. (Two for £1:95) Another Christmas to look forward to, I must go and prepare......
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