Happy New Blog!

Well hello there again - I hope that you all had a very merry irrelevant midwinter festival of your choice and a happy new arbitrary mathematical adjustment of the date was had by all.

(There, that should appease everybody)

Me?... well thank you for asking. I made two noteworthy achievements during this festive period - spent with Tallulah's family in Scotland.

FIRSTLY (once more I run the risk of appearing twee) I visited a pantomime for the first time in over 25 years. A Scottish pantomime no less - 'Cinderella' in Edinburgh - and I have to say that it was a far classier event than anything you'd encounter in England.

English pantomimes have been in decline for a long time now and seem to exist in order to give desperate soap actors something to do at when they've been written out of a series (or give a change of scenery to still-popular soap stars whose characters mysteriously disappear to Manchester/Benidorm/Brigadoon/Mars for three months). The posters for English pantomimes are particularly awful - they seem as tired and desperate as the performers.

Anyway - THIS pantomime was silly and stupid and joyous and fun. There were live animals (which, disappointingly, did not defecate at any point), the odd risque joke, lots of slapstick humour, and even some unintentional merriment when Little Red Riding Hood fell over and had to be helped up by Cinderella's dad! Can't wait to go again.

(The one moment of cynical terror I experienced was when an obviously very middle class toddler - called Skye - was taken up on stage and used her fairy princess powers to make it snow. I can't help thinking that some very expensive therapy lies ahead for this child).

The SECOND noteworthy event was that at a Scottish New Year's party I was persuaded to conquer the icy fear which clutches my bowels and get up and attempt Scottish dancing again and I WASN'T THE WORST AT IT.

(As I write this I realise that the Scots, Irish and Welsh have always try to get me involved in their traditional music or dance but NOT ONCE has a fellow Englishman pressured me into trying Morris Dancing).

In any case, this was something of a breakthrough for me. My previous attempts at Scottish dancing have resulted in white sergeant's which are particularly undashing - not to mention my gordon's, which are quite resolutely heterosexual.

More soon.

Christmas is coming and the informed rants are getting fat...

I have to admit that I'm a little taken aback - I've now received my first blog abuse!

Certain commentators of the spangly feline variety took exception to the excessively christmassy nature of my last post. Words like 'twee' were employed in an uncomplimentary manner and some seem to feel that it did not carry the usual geekish cynicism which we've all come to know.

Reading it back again I admit that I probably went overboard with the picture of the tree (just showing off with my birthday camera). I'll admit that it was somewhat twee...

...BUT...

...the pure truth of the matter is that my life does occasionally wander into twee-ville.

Occasionally I wonder whether I should take steps to remedy what appears (to some) to be these intermittent acts of non-cynical twee-ness in my life, but then I note that the alternative prospect - of spending ones life trying to be "cool", "arch", "alternative" and "right-on" ALL THE TIME - doesn't seem to do it's adherents much good.

Been there, done that, wore the disdainful t-shirt, ate the ecological fair-trade burger and tried to choreograph the guardian-reading musical.

I'm 33 and I own Dalek bubble bath for (insert cosmic being of your choice)'s sake - being twee is the least of my worries!

On the subject of my regard for Christmas - I really don't attach much importance to the Judaeo-Christian Mythology of the event. It's a midwinter festival (rather like lunch is simply a mid-day meal) and it rather neatly breaks up the monotony of December in the same way that nipples break up the monotony of a man's chest...

(that last observation courtesy of spanglepuss herself)

In fact I'd go so far as to say that Xmas is the least religious festival that I can think of.

As a child I was extremely greedy and it was about Xmas presents (receiving of), television and food (in that order).

As a teenager I discovered food and the social pressures that forced me to start buying presents for people who weren't related to me - so it became about Xmas food, television and presents (receiving and [reluctantly] giving of).

As an adult I found that Christmas television sucked and so it became about Xmas food, presents (giving and receiving of) and television.

(This was also the point that I probably became aware that "family and togetherness" was supposed to be involved - I think I got this area covered by taking my laundry home with me).

Nowadays I spend a few days with either my (reduced) family or with Tallulah's wonderful relatives and I enjoy the true meaning of Christmas - NOT BEING AT WORK.

So, apologies to anyone out there who, like spanglepuss, coughed up a hairball over the previous post. I sympathise with Christmas-phobes - my father suffered the onset of his final illness on Christmas Eve - and sometimes I feel like I'd like to give it a miss.

But another (possibly less cool but probably more self aware) part of me feels that isolating myself disdainfully from the whole experience might be tantamount to cutting my festive nose off to spite my face.

It's christmas time (and there's no time to be afraid)

Having scored something of a minor hit with my last post (three comments - woo-hoo) I thought that I'd stick a picture in this one too - this is the Xmas tree recently installed by Tallulah and myself.

This weekend is the first point this year at which I felt Christmas-sy. Tallulah and myself had a lie-in, went out and bought an Xmas tree, decorated it together and then wrote our Xmas cards as we drank mulled wine. Then we watched the studio Ghibli masterpiece "My neighbour Totoro" - or at least I watched it, Tallulah got bored and went and did something else...

(...it's a good film but somewhat overrated and, to be frank, takes far too long to get going. A bit more Totoro would be nice - as would the opportunity to watch it in the original Japanese without the, rather cloying, American dub).

Unlike many people that I've spoken to recently, the excessive Christmas-ness that abounds has not annoyed me...yet. Despite being a complete cynic in almost very other respect I do still have a strong regard for Christmas, although his may be because it's a festival that revolves around food.

(I'm told that there is some kind of religious angle too, but I've yet to see any evidence).

I've thankfully managed to miss the worst excesses of Christmas shopping (so far). The one advantage of living so near the Trafford centre is that it's _always_ packed - a seething mass of human Brownian motion that defies the seasons. I'll admit that it's MORE packed nearer Xmas but the place is so vast that it can absorb a lot of the bustle without become too oppressive.

The one time that I saw the Trafford Centre REALLY busy was when Billie Piper was doing a book signing. Made my little geek heart proud, although not proud enough to buy her autobiography and queue for two hours.