Skip to main content

Ho Ho... erm.... Ho

Nearly Christmas then. Just 2 weeks left. That reminds me, I really should write some cards some time soon. In next to no time (well, 2 weeks, as previously mentioned) most of the hideous, materialistic, corporate, greedy bit of Christmas will be done, we'll get a nice day without all the crap (except for the different crap on TV) and then it'll be time for the Sales. Wooop. Sorry, I can't raise a second wooop. Maybe I'll be able to get one half price?

Still, Christmas day does at least offer us the chance (in the UK at least) to see David Tennant off as Doctor Who. Looking forward to that. Did that sound bad? What I meant is, I'm looking forward to Doctor Who, not getting rid of Mr T. He's actually even better than Tom Baker. There, I said it. I expect that 40-something hate mail to start arriving any time soon.

Some crud from the X-Factor will probably be No.1 for Crimbo, although I've long-since stopped caring. I wonder if I can pinpoint the exact week I didn't look up the Top 40 or listen to the chart show? Nah. Brain too old. There are rather a lot of rather excellent Christmas records from yesteryear though. Care to name some? I'll start you off. Jonah Lewie - Stop The Cavalry. Even my Dad liked that one, although he did comment that Jonah's haircut wasn't short enough to go with the WW1 uniform he wore on TOTP. (Jonah. Not my Dad - he wasn't ever on TOTP... at least, I don't think so.)

Am I rambling? You were warned.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Suffering from natural obsolescence

You know you’re getting old when it dawns on you that you’re outliving technological breakthroughs. You know the sort of thing – something revolutionary, that heralds a seismic shift it the way the modern world operates. Clever, time-saving, breathtaking and life-changing (and featuring a circuit board). It’s the future, baby! Until it isn’t any more. I got to pondering this when we laughed heartily in the office about someone asking if our camcorder used “tape”. Tape? Get with the times, Daddy-o! If it ain’t digital then for-get-it! I then attempted to explain to an impossibly young colleague that video tape in a camcorder was indeed once a “thing”, requiring the carrying of something the size of a briefcase around on your shoulder, containing batteries normally reserved for a bus, and a start-up time from pressing ‘Record’ so lengthy, couples were already getting divorced by the time it was ready to record them saying “I do”. After explaining what tape was, I realised I’d ...

Shouting in the social media mirror

It was always tricky to fit everything you wanted into the intentionally short character count of Twitter, especially when, like me, you tend to write ridiculously long sentences that keep going on and on, with no discernible end in sight, until you start wondering what the point was in the first place. The maximum length of a text message originally limited a tweet to 140 characters, due to it being a common way to post your ramblings in Twitter’s early days. Ten years later, we’ve largely consigned texting to the tech dustbin, and after a lot of angst, the social media platform’s bigwigs have finally opted to double your ranting capacity to 280. Responses ranged from “You’ve ruined it! Closing my account!” to the far more common “Meh” of modern disinterest. As someone rightly pointed out, just because you have twice as much capacity doesn’t mean you actually have to use it. It is, of course, and excellent opportunity to use the English language correctly and include punctuat...

A fisful of change at the shops

A recent day out reminded me how much the retail experience has altered during my lifetime – and it’s not all good. I could stop typing this, and buy a fridge, in a matter of seconds. The shops are shut and it’s 9pm, but I could still place the order and arrange delivery. I haven’t got to wander round a white-goods retail emporium trying to work out which slightly different version of something that keeps my cider cold is better. It’ll be cheaper, too. But in amongst the convenience, endless choice and bargains, we’ve lost some of the personal, human, touches that used to make a trip to the shops something more than just a daily chore. Last weekend, we visited a local coastal town. Amongst the shops selling over-priced imported home accessories (who doesn’t need another roughly-hewn wooden heart, poorly painted and a bargain at £10?) was one that looked different. It’s window allowed you to see in, rather than being plastered with stick-on graphics and special offers calling ...