Yule be Miserable
By Dominic Horton
People often use the phrase peace on Earth at Christmas but it would be
more appropriate to talk about p*ss on Earth as at this festive time of year as
the Earth is still the same old place with all its conflicts, wars and
disagreements, the only difference being that at Christmas everyone is p*ssed. So that being the case one might ponder
what this Christmas Malarkey is all about.
The God Squad will of course bang on about the birth of little Jezza but
it is generally agreed amongst the clever people that he was not born on 25th
December or anywhere near it and for the majority of people religion hardly
features at all in their festive reckoning and habits.
The central character in the story of Christmas is not the King
of the Jews at all but the German philosopher, sociologist and political
theorist Herbert Marcuse, who was most definitely one of the clever
people. Marcuse argued that modern
industrial society creates false needs to satisfy the greed inherent in the
capitalist system and there is no greater display or celebration of this than
at this time of year. Christmas is a
vulgar display of rampant consumerism and if we were to be honest about it we
would call it Consumermas. But to make
this vulgarity seem wholesome we still wrap Christmas up in a thin veneer of
Christian swaddling clothes. And stick a
fairy on top. But ultimately Christmas
is a load of old baubles.
Notwithstanding the above, I did find myself having an extremely
pleasant time within the confines of a church on Sunday. I didn’t attend the church to confess my many
minor sins as I prefer to divulge these to the high priest of the Flagon &
Gorses, the Pirate, at my principal place of worship whilst drinking his holy
water. Rather I was at the church at
the invitation of Mr & Mrs Phantom to witness the baptism of their lovely
little new member of the club of life, Poppy and I have to say that the Vicar
played an absolutely blinder carrying things off with warmth, good humour and a
common touch; such an impressive religious performance has not been seen since
Dick Emery played the buck toothed and sex starved vicar in his television
show.
At one stage in the ceremony the Vic banged on about the
importance of olive oil in the baptism ceremony and in Christianity generally
at quite some length and I half expected him to whip out a suitcase of cut
price Bertolli and start flogging it off to the congregation for last minute
Christmas presents. But alas there was
no Derek Trotter action. At one point
the Vic implored Mr & Mrs Phantom and the God parents to denounce darkness
but in their shoes I would be reluctant to do that as I am partial to a drop of
stout. Also a little bit of darkness in
the shadows is not unwelcome and there is plenty of it lurking in the Flagon
& Gorses and more so at Codger Mansions, where playful demons dwell.
After having attended a trio of funerals this year it was
refreshing and poignant at the year’s end to be able to celebrate in a
convivial atmosphere the happy event of a new life coming into the world. The experience was made all the more
comfortable as after some agonising I decided to dispense with my suit in
favour of comfortable chinos and a sports jacket. I was concerned by not wearing a suit that
my standard of dress would not be up to scratch but I should not have worried
as on arrival at the church I found that some of my slovenly work colleagues
were wearing jeans, which I thought was a bit irreverential, even by my
standards.
The last christening that I went to was that of my dear little
niece Eva, the daughter of my younger brother Codger and his wife Mrs
Codger. I was honoured to be asked to be
one of Eva’s God parents but being a devoted atheist I had concerns that I
might find myself in a compromised position during the catholic ceremony so I
decided to seek correspondence on the matter with Bishop John Sherrington, Bishop of the Diocese of Westminster, as he knows a
thing or two about Catholicism. By
quoting chapter and verse from his club’s rules the Bish left me in no doubt
whatsoever that as a non-believe I was not considered fit to be a God parent
and that I should abdicate the role in favour of someone of a more pious bent:
I communicated this information to the Codger but we spoke to the local Bishop
who said, “look, this is not Westminster, it’s Halesowen. Don’t worry it will
be alright.” And that was that. The only problem then was that the Codger had
asked the Bishop if he could take a word or two out of the service but the Codg
had edited it down so much that he had basically stripped out all of the
religious content. Negotiations ensued
and a deal was clinched.
Continuing the theme of matters ceremonial the Lowlife Christmas party went swimmingly well and was attended by
the author, the editor, the publicity manager and the publisher: in other words
it was attended by just me. The
Christmas cob and pint of bitter in the Flagon & Gorses was just the
ticket. Even the Pirate deserted me as
he had to pop down the town to buy more sprouts, Chilli Willy having run out
due to a rush on the catering front.
Mind you there were benefits to having a Christmas party on my own as
there was no fear of waking up having regretted sleeping with the secretary and
the quality of conversation was good as the voices in my head were in jolly
festive form. I did though have great
difficulty in refraining from excitedly disclosing to myself what I had got for
the secret Santa.
I see that plastic bank notes are being introduced by the Bank of England
and they are apparently indestructible so next year we will be able to bung a
fiver in our Christmas puddings. This
should improve things as despite inflation being seemingly through the roof the
pay out to the lucky Christmas pudding winner has stayed static at sixpence
since Charles Dickens’ time so it’s hardly worth the bother of chewing through
a portion of the sickly dessert.
I also learnt this week that the Queen is having trouble with her
nuts. The BBC reported that Betty is so
fed up with Buck House policemen and security guards pilfering nuts and Bombay
mix (or is it Mumbai mix now?) that she leaves lying around in bowls dotted all
over her regal dwelling that she has started to mark the bowls to deter the
peckish policemen. The Queen could go
the whole hog and install CCTV to monitor the nut bowls to catch the culprits
red handed or alternatively she could stop indulging in the frankly crackpot
behaviour of leaving savoury snacks placed all around the gaff. It will at least give old Betty something
useful to say in her Queen’s Speech on Christmas day instead of spouting forth
about the Commonwealth like she does every year.
If the Queen’s Speech turns out to be too boring we can always turn over
the television channel and watch a James Bond film as they always tend to be
broadcast at Christmas. A bunch of
clever dick doctors from Derby and Nottingham with far too much time on their
hands read all of Ian Fleming’s Bond novels and they revealed last week their
findings that Bond should effectively be an impotent drunk given that he drinks
the equivalent of one and a half bottles of wine a day. If drinking the equivalent of one and a half
bottles of wine a day leads to drunken impotence then all I can say is gawd
help the Pirate.
While attending the Flagon & Gorses I was unexpectedly given an early
Christmas present but the gift was not from the Pirate but from the jocular and
entertaining Dick the Hook who palmed me off with an unwanted calendar from his
local Chinese takeaway (which I am delighted to report for Dick’s sake is not
the Rhareli Peking.) The calendar
informed us that Dick is a rat (so no surprise there) and that I am a boar
which is nearly correct as readers of this column will know that I am a bore and
one needs no more evidence of this fact than to read this edition as despite it
being Christmas all I can think to bang on about is the work of a German
philosopher, sociologist and political theorist, which is a subject that is
dryer than the turkey that you will all be eating on the 25th. So make sure you slaver the festive meat
with cranberry sauce to hydrate it as otherwise there is no doubt whatsoever
that Yule be miserable.
© Dominic Horton, December 2013.
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