| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
ColinB
Guest
|
 Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 2:28 pm Post subject: So this is Christmas....... |
 |
|
......... so sang John Lennon way back when.
Do all the high street stores play the same tired old CD? No matter what store you walk in or past you hear the strains (and it is a strain!) of Slade, Roy Wood, McCartney, G. Michael, the Band Aid mob, etc etc. And that's not forgetting the fact that in the week running up to Christmas we'll be subjected to the same rubbish on R2 as producers all come up with the brilliant idea of bombarding listeners with this samey old rubbish as well!!! What a load of rubbish!
Blimey, talk about overkill!
Still, not long until the most important day of the season - The Winter Solstice. Then things start to get a teensy-weensy bit lighter each day. That's what I look forward to. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Rachel
Guest
|
| Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 2:59 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Actually Radio 2 is going to quite an effort this year to play different Christmas tunes. Several of the shows are asking us to write in with suggestions for Christmas tracks that rarely, if ever, get played. There are loads of them too. The problem is- people in general remember Christmas as an amorphous blob of a good time but which is actually all the good things about all previous Christmases bundled into one single memory, which means the compilation CDs of the no 1s over the years tends to be the musical blob of a memory people have and so is what they ask for. It’s also why Christmas is always a disappointment because the current Christmas on its own can never live up to the amorphous blob of memory of excitement and good times that all previous Christmases have become.
This is Christmas....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjFPM-9u80E |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ColinB
Guest
|
| Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 3:30 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Rachel wrote: | | Actually Radio 2 is going to quite an effort this year to play different Christmas tunes. Several of the shows are asking us to write in with suggestions for Christmas tracks that rarely, if ever, get played. There are loads of them too. The problem is- people in general remember Christmas as an amorphous blob of a good time but which is actually all the good things about all previous Christmases bundled into one single memory, which means the compilation CDs of the no 1s over the years tends to be the musical blob of a memory people have and so is what they ask for. It’s also why Christmas is always a disappointment because the current Christmas on its own can never live up to the amorphous blob of memory of excitement and good times that all previous Christmases have become. |
Phew, there are lots of amorphous blobs in those Christmases past, Rachel!!!
Actually, my memory of our Christmases is that the festivities occupied a much shorter period of time than they do now. Things never really got "Christmassy" anywhere until the week before Christmas itself, and even then it wasn't as intense as it is now. In the 60s I certainly recall there being TV ads for Christmassy stuff in October or cheesy music being played in shops (actually, there never was music in shops that I recall). I also remember always having a good family get-together on Christmas eve with one set of grand-parents or the other, especially when uncles and cousins were on leave from the Army, Navy or whatever (I was brought up in Guz - being a former Royal Navy person you'll know where that is!).
What I dislike most about modern-day Christmas (and that's even from the position of Confirmed Atheist) is the overt - and cynical - commercialism of the festive period.
But I guess I ain't gonna change things, people being people. I can still have a good moan though!  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Rachel
Guest
|
| Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 3:55 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I sort of agree with you there, Colin.
When I was little, Christmas started on Christmas Eve and lasted until early January- the shops were closed for a week- could you get batteries anywhere? No! It was a big watching the telly fest- loads of people around- toys and nuts everywhere! Having six older brothers it was quite hectic at times too. Now, it all seems to stop with the Boxing Day sofa sales- ok kids we’re going to look around several sofa shops but don’t worry you can take your Gameboy or DS or whatever the latest handheld game console is. That isn’t Christmas! Christmas is building a Submarine under your brothers’ bunk-beds, firing Barbie doll torpedoes at your Auntie, climbing the stairway of doom with your Uncle before being eaten by a large sea-monster which is hiding at the top, driving a tractor which happens to be your dad – his ears are the steering wheel, playing the chocolate game with a large pair of wellingtons, some big gloves and your granny’s hat! Yay! Eating so many Satsumas you turn orange. Selection Boxes! Postal Orders and open fires.
Guz… yes I know it well.
Moaning can be a form of release I guess. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Lord Evan Elpuss
Joined: 10 Dec 2006
Posts: 3415
Location: Cloud Cuckoo Land
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ruddlescat
Joined: 16 Sep 2010
Posts: 18010
Location: Near Chester
|
| Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 8:07 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I entirely agree that Christmas is not the same as it used to be forty years ago
Its starts far too early and because of this its significance is substantially decreased
As has been said Christmas is not about hitting the sales on Boxing Day trying to get a so called bargain it should be about families and tradition and making the festive season special for the next generation
People can go shopping anytime but tradition can be lost if it is not valued at the appropriate time
_________________
Are you ready for a Ruddles? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Lord Evan Elpuss
Joined: 10 Dec 2006
Posts: 3415
Location: Cloud Cuckoo Land
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Sadie Su
Joined: 14 Sep 2010
Posts: 146
|
| Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 10:14 am Post subject: |
|
|
The holly and the Ivy
The mistletoe as well
Are sitting with the Brussels’s sprouts
Green grocers have to sell
The tinsel and the baubles
That I took down last year
Are looking sad and battered now
I need some more, oh dear
The presents will need wrapping
But I must buy them first
The whisky adverts on TV
Have given me a thirst
So I am going shopping
With fully loaded purse
So I’ll finish off this Carol now
Before it gets much worse |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ruddlescat
Joined: 16 Sep 2010
Posts: 18010
Location: Near Chester
|
| Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 11:18 am Post subject: |
|
|
That's really nice Sadie but the subject of sprouts is rather a sore point with me at the moment
I went down to Morrisons yesterday only to find there was not a sprout in sight but I did spot a member of staff telling a group of irate customers that the reason for the problem was because the growers apparently could not get the sprouts out of the frozen ground
Most people seemed to accept this explanation or should I say excuse but I thought to myself sprouts grow on stalks sticking up out of the ground and get harvested by picking so why on earth would anyone try to dig them up out of the ground
When I spoke to a manageress she seemed equally clueless and I pointed out to her that sprouts are a winter vegetable which are supposed to taste better if picked in frosty conditions but she just stared at me blankly
What on earth is wrong with people in this country these days
I told her next time I go there if I ever do I'm going to present the store with the annual Basil Fawlty award for the best lame excuse of 2010 
_________________
Are you ready for a Ruddles? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ColinB
Guest
|
| Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 11:24 am Post subject: |
|
|
| ruddlescat wrote: | | What on earth is wrong with people in this country these days |
I think we're referring to the same group of people who will moan that there are too many HGVs clogging up our town centres and they should be banned - even those that are carrying sprouts that have just been dug from the frozen soil!
The word to describe them all is "thick".
By the way, in a TV street "vox pop" a 14-year-old child is asked where milk comes from. Her answer was "Sainsbury's". That's what we're having to deal with! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
RockitRon
Joined: 07 Dec 2006
Posts: 7646
|
| Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 11:34 am Post subject: |
|
|
| ruddlescat wrote: | That's really nice Sadie but the subject of sprouts is rather a sore point with me at the moment
I went down to Morrisons yesterday only to find there was not a sprout in sight but I did spot a member of staff telling a group of irate customers that the reason for the problem was because the growers apparently could not get the sprouts out of the frozen ground
Most people seemed to accept this explanation or should I say excuse but I thought to myself sprouts grow on stalks sticking up out of the ground and get harvested by picking so why on earth would anyone try to dig them up out of the ground
When I spoke to a manageress she seemed equally clueless and I pointed out to her that sprouts are a winter vegetable which are supposed to taste better if picked in frosty conditions but she just stared at me blankly
What on earth is wrong with people in this country these days
I told her next time I go there if I ever do I'm going to present the store with the annual Basil Fawlty award for the best lame excuse of 2010 |
Is there a variety of sprout called Waldorf, I wonder? 
We get this sort of scare about sprouts nearly every year, and they manage to get 'em out in the end, just in time. From a photograph I saw in the Telegraph at the weekend, I think sprouts are grown both on stalks and in the ground. Anyway, milder weather forecast for the weekend - expect a frenzy of activity on a sprout farm near you, and get the pan boiling ready.
_________________
Ron |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
RockitRon
Joined: 07 Dec 2006
Posts: 7646
|
| Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 11:35 am Post subject: |
|
|
| ruddlescat wrote: | I entirely agree that Christmas is not the same as it used to be forty years ago
Its starts far too early and because of this its significance is substantially decreased
As has been said Christmas is not about hitting the sales on Boxing Day trying to get a so called bargain it should be about families and tradition and making the festive season special for the next generation
People can go shopping anytime but tradition can be lost if it is not valued at the appropriate time |
As far as the shops go, I think they were pretty well in full gear forty years ago. They might not have been quite as early as Selfridge's was this year, but John Lewis stores have always cleared aside their garden furniture in mid-September to make way for the Christmas trees and baubles.
In our childhood the only things which concerned us between Christmas and the January return to school were whether the chocolate coins would last that long and keeping brother's sticky fingers away from... just about everything. They were called the January Sales, so I suppose they didn't start until Jan 2; can't remember when they were brought forward.
The Americans were way ahead of us in the commercialism of Christmas anyway. I think I've posted this before but... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSPGJ5-XAcM
_________________
Ron |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
becky sharp
Joined: 01 Dec 2008
Posts: 6814
|
| Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 12:26 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| ColinB wrote: |
By the way, in a TV street "vox pop" a 14-year-old child is asked where milk comes from. Her answer was "Sainsbury's". That's what we're having to deal with! |
Kids eh?..bless em...when they are buying it for themselves they'll soon learn it comes from Marks and Sparks... 
" A red and green bandwagon to jump on"
 |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
RockitRon
Joined: 07 Dec 2006
Posts: 7646
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
