A Very British Christmas
Page 18
12 But before I stop doing so, it’s worth pointing out that ‘I Saw Three Ships’ describes three ships sailing into Bethlehem. Quite a feat, considering that Bethlehem has no rivers anywhere near it and the Mediterranean Sea is about forty miles away. But anyway.
13 We can lay the blame for this one partly at the door of Charles Dickens, for getting the comma in the wrong place when he refers to the words of the song as ‘God bless you, merry gentlemen’ in A Christmas Carol. I’ll forgive him at some point, but not right now. I’m too worked up.
14 Although it’s worth noting that ‘Jingle Bells’ doesn’t specifically mention Christmas. Its original title was ‘One Horse Open Sleigh’ and it’s mainly a song about sledging, and more specifically sledging in Massachusetts. Also, ‘Jingle Bells’ is an instruction rather than a description (i.e. you really ought to jingle your bells), according to scholars who know more about this stuff than I do.
15 The words of the chorus go as follows: ‘Snowbound for Christmas / that’s what I’d like to be / snowbound for Christmas / just you and me / no one for miles around / the phone lines are cut /I don’t want to die / In this remotely situated hut’ (I may have made up the last three lines.)
16 NB: John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’ had actually reached the top 10 the previous year.
17 This song, performed by 10-year-old Gayla Peevey, features the improbable couplet ‘There’s lots of room for him in our two-car garage, I’d feed him there and wash him there and give him his massage’. Good luck to anyone attempting this.
18 ‘Christmas In Prison’ is a great song. It almost makes you want to go back to prison.
19 Which to me sounds a bit like a near-death experience, but hey, each to their own.
20 No publicity is ever given to the people employed to turn off Christmas lights every year. I tried to find someone who had done such a thing, but drew a blank. You’ve got to feel sorry for them. No countdown, no one turning up to watch, and paid a fraction of whatever the person out of Liberty X got paid a few weeks earlier.
21 We don’t see this kind of thing any more because of oppressive legislation from the EU, which has deprived us of our right to be savaged by wild animals when we’re out shopping. Don’t worry, this will surely return in 2019.
22 In 2015, Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin put out a statement just before Christmas to reassure the nation that the roads were going to be just fine, despite having no advance knowledge of jack-knifing lorries. ‘Hard-working people [can] travel around freely at Christmas and see friends and family,’ he said, adding, ‘We are on the side of the honest motorist, making it easier for people to get around, as well as creating jobs and opportunities.’ For some reason this made me howl with laughter so I thought I’d put it in the book.
23 Love using that word, it makes me feel about 50 per cent more intelligent than I actually am.
24 The correct strategy, of course, is to accept the banker’s first offer and spend the rest of the show urging the studio audience to pick up their coats and bags and go home, while you hand out pamphlets explaining theories of probability. I don’t want to be the kind of joyless person who points out that there’s no such thing as lucky numbers, but unfortunately I am.
25 The clip has lost none of its emotional potency. At the time of writing, there are a couple of versions knocking about on YouTube, so if you fancy spending five minutes reliving those moments of British emotional repression, knock yourself out. I just did, and I’m a complete mess as a result.
26 The Sound of Music in 1978, The Great Escape in 2001.
27 In truth it’s not quite as big for commercial broadcasters. I’m told that advertising rates aren’t as high at Christmas, simply because we’re all spent out. So the effort that’s made by commercial broadcasters to give us a decent Christmas line-up is more for reputational reasons.
28 The possible alternatives to The Morecambe and Wise Show in 1977 were a film on ITV about Winston Churchill as a young man, and on BBC Two nothing at all. Nothing. A blank screen. Those were the options. And this was long before the red button.
29 Actually, maybe not anyone. I live quite near a mosque in East London, and whatever people might say about the state of racial tension in Britain, I’ve never seen anyone wearing a Santa hat shouting ‘Scrooge’ at the people emerging from the mosque after Friday prayers. Thankfully.
30 As Dan says: ‘If you know someone who feels like this, send a text. Make a phone call. Pay a visit. It will mean a lot. And if you want someone to talk to, Samaritans are available to talk 24 hours a day on 116 123 (UK and ROI).
31 I’m making an assumption here that people know about Ed Balls Day. If you’re unfamiliar with Ed Balls Day, I wouldn’t worry about it. You can create the effect of Ed Balls Day by just walking into your local library and saying your own name loudly to whoever’s on reception.
32 As anyone with a vague memory of religious studies will tell you, Jesus is considered a prophet in Islam and appears in the Qur’an as a worker of miracles, among other things. This doesn’t have much bearing on Muslim attitudes towards Christmas, but if I didn’t mention it in the book then it would look like I didn’t know about it.
33 There’s still plenty of humiliation in a typical British Christmas; fasting less so.
34 Looking at the website debate.org, the question: ‘Is Christmas becoming too commercialised?’ has 80 per cent of respondents voting yes (‘If Christ could see what has become of the celebration of his birth he would punish us all’), with only a few people daring to venture an opposing argument. And when they do it’s pretty incoherent, e.g. ‘Illuminati ssddds sd Dddddd mlg mario 720 snoop dogg wikileaks dr dre’.
35 Since the passing of the Sunday Trading Act in 1994, the difference between ‘days’ and ‘shopping days’ is pretty meaningless. They’re completely interchangeable, although it’s unlikely ‘shopping days’ will edge further into everyday language, e.g. ‘your hair has seen better shopping days’ or ‘halcyon shopping days’.
36 Picking things up, putting them down again and scratching yourself can be terribly exhausting for a man.
37 They’re all on YouTube, each with millions of views. Check them out. People evidently watch them regularly for entertainment purposes. Maybe those people fancy a cry but only have 90 seconds spare and don’t have time to watch all of Brokeback Mountain. Job done.
38 The Debt Advice Foundation helpline is on 0800 043 40 50, Monday to Friday 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Saturday 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., and their website is at www.debtadvicefoundation.org.
39 Pret A Manger caters for Brits who simply can’t wait for the unmistakable taste of Christmas Day, by bunging all the ingredients between two slices of bread and selling it for somewhere north of three quid. And in 2016, Pret launched Melvin, the melting gingerbread snowman, evoking traumatic memories of T-1000 in Terminator 2.
40 I’m very aware of the social and cultural issues that surround the British use of ‘lunch’ and ‘dinner’. To avoid inciting class war I’m trying to use the terms interchangeably and avoid expressing a personal preference. But we all know what we’re talking about. The hot meal that we eat at some point in the afternoon or evening.
41 Having just used a popular Internet search engine to check the difference between pigs in blankets and devils on horseback, I would highly recommend using a popular Internet search engine to check the difference between pigs in blankets and devils on horseback.
42 These dishes may contain nuts or traces of nuts.
43 My father has never advocated corporal punishment in the home, so don’t call social services about this; they’ve got bigger fish to fry.
44 I’ve now got the urge to design a coat of arms featuring two cricket bats, a pot of geraniums and a scroll underneath that reads Ne Faciamus Vexationem, but I’ve got the rest of this book to write. It’ll make one hell of an unwanted Christmas present when I finally get around to it.
45 If you were wondering a
bout the social acceptability of Christmas jumpers, it’s worth pointing out that in 2016 some British pubs and restaurants banned the wearing of Christmas jumpers on the premises because people wearing them were more likely to be ‘boisterous and loud’ and would ‘ruin’ the evening for everyone else.
46 For those who are unfamiliar with Cards Against Humanity, it’s a card game that incorporates a certain amount of rudeness, and you definitely wouldn’t feel comfortable playing it with me and my family. Lots of tense silences.
47 Things slowly revolving is, somehow, inherently Christmassy. If you look back at BBC television idents throughout the 1970s and 1980s, you’ll see all kinds of stuff slowly revolving – Christmas puddings, snowflakes, flapping robins and, most alarmingly, a head with a face of Santa on each side, front and back. If you fancy recreating Christmas TV of yore, just put something glittery on a record player and let it spin at 33rpm.
48 ‘I have a cow dressed as an angel at the top of my tree,’ says my friend Kat. ‘It was my mum’s. It’s called Esmeralda. I can’t explain it.’ The great thing is, Kat (if you’re reading), that you don’t have to explain it.
49 I was also told, rather wonderfully, that while the Queen’s crackers are apparently handmade and contain luxury stuff, the jokes therein are just the same ones the rest of us get. No knock-knock jokes specifically tailored for royalty! What a wonderful tribute to egalitarianism.