Christmas

When I was growing up Christmas was my favourite time of year and it remains so in many ways. You got time off school, loads of presents and you saw all your family and friends. Also, people were normally more cheery.

Nowadays all I seem to hear about is how Christmas lights are offending a bunch of immigrants so we should take them down. I never realised a flashing reindeer and a snowman could be distasteful. I’m not especially religious so maybe I’m missing the point but I always thought being tolerant of other people’s beliefs was a creditable approach. It seems not. Because the UK has veered too far in the direction of political correctness (so far that we’ve crashed through the barrier and emerged on the wrong side of the road) anything which might offend someone in a minority group is deemed bad. And then it’s probably banned.

I’ve done a fair amount of travelling, but at no point did I wander into a South East Asian country and expect them to change their traditions to suit me. I’d have had less respect for them if they did. I was a visitor in their country so I should have been expected to respect their customs and practices, and rightly so.

Anyway, that’s a minor rant but not where I was ultimately going. I do still enjoy Christmas even though I’m acutely aware it might make me a hypocrite if I’m not a Christian. For me, not much has changed in what I enjoy since I was a kid. I tend to add more alcohol to my festivities now and I don’t really hope for the latest Transformer as a gift (although it’s preferable to socks).

I can still be irritable though so appreciate not being interrupted during my evening meal with a bunch of carol singers wishing to regale me with Silent Night. In fact, let me expand that to Christmas music in general. Why, when you work in an office, is there always someone who thinks normal rules go out the window at Christmas? I’m not permitted to play Marilyn Manson in July, so why the hell do they get to play Santa Claus Is Coming To Town in December?

Once these people have finished decorating their desks with tinsel, fairy lights, novelty snowmen and any other nonsense they can lay their hands on they start on the music. Out come the crappy Christmas Compilation CDs and they decide that everyone within twenty desks would like to listen to a song no-one in their right mind cared about when it was released twenty years ago, let alone today. Throwing a couple of Christmas references into a crap song doesn't instantly transform it into something The Beatles would have been proud of. But that’s right; they decide on your behalf. Don’t question it though, because apparently having functional hearing and a reasonable taste in music to tantamount to being a “bah humbug miserable bastard”.

The Chairman at my company told one of the guys to turn his music off one year. No-one wants to hear the same CD on repeat every bloody day for a month. There’s only so many times I can hear Fairytale In New York before I start wanting to maim people (for the record, it’s about three times). Anyway, the guy in question thought he was joking until the Chairman repeated his request and then told me I could punch him if he played it again. True story. I think the last part might have been a joke, but I was willing to test him on it if I so much as heard a single bar from anything by Slade.

Rolling out the same films at Christmas is actually a positive thing. You can never have too much Indiana Jones, Star Wars or Batman at Christmas, although The Sound of Music is a step too far for me. I’ve absolutely no issue with Miracle On 34th Street being repeated each year because I can change the channel. But, if someone tied me to a chair and subjected me to it every day I should not be held accountable for my actions. Besides, watching these movies allows you to skip the Queen’s Speech while you’re tucking into a turkey the size of an ostrich. For a while I worked from home, which was lucky for me (and anyone who thinks they’re bringing Christmas spirit to the office) as I could listen to Nine Inch Nails without being labelled the Grinch. If I wanted to feel the Christmas spirit I’d go outside and throw snowballs at small children. It’s all about choice.

Still, I maintain a level of enjoyment over the festivities (a.k.a. drinking time) and getting people presents is now infinitely easier thanks to internet shopping. Now I have a daughter I’ll be able to indulge her at Christmas once she’s a bit older, although I have to say I’m a little disappointed. When you walk into any big toy store the options are endless; a giant sea of choice, wrapped in brightly coloured plastic and enticing advertising. I’m still drawn to the boy’s toys and who wouldn’t be? I had bucket loads of Star Wars figures when I was younger and you can still get them now, only they’ve been improved and there’s even more choice. Plus there’s loads of other cool stuff like dinosaurs with rocket launchers attached to their backs and huge race tracks you can snake around the house. What do they have for girls? My little bloody pony and some pretend kitchen sets? It’s about as dull as it gets. I’ll even avoid the sexist joke about kitchens (it’s too easy), but where’s the adventure in pretending to make breakfast? I’ll be the first to tell her; I’ve done it in real life and it’s boring. I wouldn’t necessarily choose for her to grow up wearing Doc Martins and sporting a shaved head but I wonder what damage I could possibly do by buying her the latest toy rocket launchers and machine guns each year. At least I could play with them when she got bored.

101%

If there’s one thing in life you can’t argue with it’s an absolute. Mathematics, for example, is a very black and white subject. Sure, you can display statistics in a way to suit your argument (“lies, damned lies and statistics”) but the simple fact is that two plus two equals four.

So what’s wrong with 101%? My irritation in this matter is not with the number but the people who trot out this ridiculous figure. I’m not saying that 101% doesn’t exist, because clearly it does… but not in the manner often used. Allow me to elaborate. A box of Jaffa Cakes (yes please, if you’re offering) with 140% written on the side is fine. What you’re getting, effectively, is 40% more than standard (which would have been 100%). That’s all well and good because, to all intents and purposes (in this example at least), there is an infinite potential for Jaffa Cake supply.

Agreed? Okay, now take a finite supply of something and promise more than is available. I’d like someone to explain how I could change the tyres on 120% of my car’s wheels. What does that mean? Changing the spare tyre twice? It’s stupid. How about 150% of the UK’s population turning up to vote at the next election? Doesn’t work does it?

Can one of the sportsmen or politicians (or whoever) please tell me how they’re going to “give 101% effort” please? How? 100% is all your effort. All of it. So where’s the extra 1% coming from? If you found some more effort then you clearly weren’t giving 100% to begin with. It’s not rocket science.

Some people disagree. I had someone tell me that it meant “he was going to do better”. Really? Well that’s about performance or results, but not effort. Sure, performance is a sliding scale but effort isn’t. You simply cannot give more effort than 100%. It’s a mathematical impossibility.

It gets worse though. You see, it started with people saying they’d give 100% but then the next person wanted to sound more dedicated, more determined, so he’d offer 101% effort. That became the new 100%. But then things changed and 110% became the new 100%. If you weren’t giving at least 110% you weren’t trying.

I’d love to interview the next footballer who says “we’ll be giving 110% in the big game”. My retort would be simple. “Really”, I’d start. “110%? Well if you’re going to throw rules out of the window why are you offering only 110%? Why not 200%? Hell, if you were really dedicated you’d make it into four figures easily – a good 1000%. In fact, if you’re going to completely ignore the fact that there’s a mathematical ceiling – set at 100% - then why on earth are you not offering a trillion percent effort? Are you lazy?”

I doubt I’d last very long in that journalist role but I would have got my point across (really? Who am I kidding?). In a world where ‘txt spk’ is taking over there is no adherence to rules or logic. The player in question would shoot me a quizzical look before telling the next interviewer his team will play the next game with 117.3% effort. It’s a fact. Of that, you can be a billion percent sure.

Celebrity And Reality Game Shows

The very depiction of how far society has fallen. I have more contempt for people who religiously watch this drivel than I do for those who watch soap operas (and that means it’s a lot, by the way). I’m sure you’re aware of the sort of programs I mean; the likes of ‘Big Brother’ and ‘I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here’. There are likely to be more but it’s too painful to do the research if I’m honest.

What, exactly, is a celebrity? A quick definition to get us started: “A celebrity is a person who is easily recognised in a society or culture.”

That creates a fairly broad brush picture which captures a variety of people from sport, business, royalty, music, film etc. What you’re talking about is someone who’s ‘famous’ for participating in a pastime or career which places them in the public eye. That is all. So why are they supposed to be fantastic role models? Someone explain that to me please. I don’t care how many records Wayne Rooney has broken and I care even less about how many bedrooms his house has or what shade of red his Ferrari is. The ability to kick a ball with unusual accuracy doesn’t suddenly transform him into a paragon of virtue. In the real world it is less impressive than the correct use of grammar (which is a skill I imagine he’s yet to master). However, it’s entertaining to some and so he is paid handsomely and is thrust in front of school children as an example of what can be achieved with one’s life...

Except, of course, he shouldn’t be. It’s not his fault. He started young, like most prodigious talents, and very quickly had everything he needed handed to him. Having personal assistants is all very well when you’ve spent twenty years building a business empire but when you’re a teenage footballer, suddenly earning more money a week than most people do a year, it’s a little different. Reality, I’m sure, can become warped.

Again, I don’t mean to pick on Rooney; the same is true of many ‘celebrities’. You only have to look at Lindsay Lohan for someone who had the start of a career people would kill for, before she flushed it all down the toilet. Drink, drugs, more drink, mixed with drugs (probably), multiple prison sentences and trips to rehab pretty much ensure she doesn’t see much work anymore. Of course actors have recovered before, but I can’t really see Lohan performing a phoenix from the flames resurrection in the same way Robert Downey Jnr did.

‘I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here’ (from the snippets I’ve had the misfortune to see) really ought to be called ‘I Once Was Once On Page Six Of The Sun For Sleeping With A Footballer, Please Make Me Famous!’. Looking back at the ‘celebrities’ who have been involved in the past it seems a sad mixture of those who were famous (ten years previously) wanting to recapture some limelight and those who seem to have reached a plateau at ‘z list’ celebrity status and think a couple of weeks eating worms on the TV will boost them up a few levels. It’s this abominable excuse for entertainment that we have to thank for thrusting Kerry Katona and Katie Price back in front of the media. Thanks a bunch. All we needed was a bout of Katie (a.k.a. Jordan) Price banging on about her fake tits and how much she loves her kids while remaining under the illusion that she’s a supermodel. Most shocking, I’ve learned, is that viewing for this show peaked at almost 25% of the UK population. Words fail me, except to say I’m in favour of mass genocide if it means purifying the gene pool.

Back to ‘Big Brother’ then, which is not even about celebrities (however loosely you define the word). It’s about ordinary, every day people. For crying out loud. At least, I imagine, on ‘I’m A Celebrity…’ you could have fantasised about Jordan falling into a pit of alligators. No, on ‘Big Brother’ everyone is unknown and they’re in a house (not a jungle), which provides all the ingredients necessary to create possibly the dullest program ever. It’s ‘reality’ TV apparently. Reality? I often move into a strange house with a group of people I’ve never met before, all of us from disparate backgrounds. It happens all the time for weeks on end and is completely normal! Is it bollocks. Who cares who’s going to do the cooking or whether Dave thinks Carly’s fit but Jennifer thinks she’s a racist bitch? Yes, I know; loads of people apparently care. Only this time it’s not just the UK population which needs sterilising because this format has gone out world wide, creating Big Brother shows in dozens of countries. Apparently the Dutch version came first, which makes sense (if you’re sitting in a stoned high) but it doesn’t offer the rest of the world excuse.

I remember when the first series started in the UK, in 2000. I was twenty five and couldn’t understand why people my own age were obsessed with it (“tune in later to watch Alice brush her hair for twenty minutes!”). I was at my peak going-to-the-pub-and-falling-over age and everyone was acting like they were pensioners, devoid of any motivation to leave their sofa. This show ran for anything up to ninety four days at a time too – that’s three bloody months. Were people rushing home to spend a quarter of their free lives watching other people purposely doing nothing with their’s?

It would be slightly more interesting if there was the chance of Al Pacino coming to blows with Eminem over the evening’s meal allocation because they’re actual celebrities, but why does anyone care what these nobodies are doing? Big Brother just seems to be a stepping stone for moderately attractive, unknown girls to prance about wearing next to nothing knowing full well that desperate teenage boys will be wanking themselves into a frenzy and they’ll be a deal for a couple of photo shoots with FHM or Nuts at the end of the show. These girls will pop up in the paper for a while and then disappear without trace. How many pictures does The Mirror need of a drunken girl falling out of a nightclub, high on coke? There are enough genuinely famous people doing that to satisfy the demand, surely?

It all goes hand in hand with society’s fascination with so-called celebrities and what they’re doing at every waking moment. Glossy magazine exist to satisfy that very curiosity so that desperate consumers can see what dress Keira Knightley wore to the Oscars and whether the resident fashion ‘expert’ thinks she made a good choice. You can learn the nationality of Angelina Jolie’s next proposed adoption and whether Madonna will try and beat her to it. So what? Why should anyone care? You shouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean you can get away from it. It’s plastered all over the news stands, the TV and the internet. I do my best to ignore it but that doesn’t stop random people who I’ve never seen before being thrust before my eyes because they’re pregnant or they’ve had an affair. I just don’t care. At least in this day and age I can choose one of the three million other channels on TV or close the web browser and do something more worthy of my attention.