I'll Be Damned

Now it is time for me to begin my annual rant about Christmas. I really hate this time of year but, as I’ve nothing original to say, I shouldn’t go on about it I suppose. I almost felt the need to lie down and meditate the other day, in the middle of Tesco (by the way, that’s another pet hate of mine – how many people say Tesco’s instead of Tesco? After all, people don’t say Adsa’s; they say Asda. Sainsbury’s is allowed, in case you are wondering, because it uses an apostrophe). But back to my near panic attack on Sunday.

Shelves stocked with neatly-packaged Stilton cheeses, speciality pork pies and those hideously expensive “festive” pre-cooked nibbles without which our Yuletide tables will be pathetically bare – it’s all vomit inducing stuff as far as I’m concerned. Kerry Katona has a lot to answer for, so she does, although I suppose it’s not all her fault really – the cheesy and charmless scripts given to her by the barrel-of-laughs writers at Iceland are supposed to make us think of her as the perfect mum and we're meant to want to be like her too. The only thing these advertisements do for me is to leave me cold (appropriately enough).

I know that the wheels of commerce have to turn, and I know that this once-a-year opportunity to exploit the public has to be exploited itself, but really – who apart from the shareholders of our mega-retailers actually enjoys this festival of blackmailed-induced indulgence? For blackmail it is – we are forced to believe that unless we deck out our homes in tinsel and gold; overload our groaning tables with crispy duck parcels, mini hot-dogs, and mini chocolate cups; and set the log fire a-blazing, then we are failures. As long as we can pile high our foil-wrapped parcels under the tree (sprayed, of course, with flame-retardant chemicals and tastefully prepared in this year’s fashion colour – last year, black was the new green I believe), then all will be well with the world.

And don't get me started on the annual Office Christmas Dinner with its badly-cooked food (selected from a disappointingly low-choice menu as long ago as October), its usual display of the inappropriate groping of young Chantelle from Despatch by some spotty youth from Sales, and it's opportunity to pretend that you always really liked "dragon-features Mary" from Accounts. Alice, pass the sick bag!

There. Rant over for another year. I thank you.