According to the common Gregorian calendar, today is the last one before the calendar runs out and has to start all over again for the 2,012th time since people started counting (except if you're in Samoa). It is because of this momentous fact, that there's nowhere else left to go after December except to go back January, that people decide to drink and shout descending numbers at each other as the clock approaches midnight.
This time last year, I was unaware when the exact second of midnight-approaching happened for reasons too complex to get into... but let's try anyway:
In what would later be known in a pointless blog post by someone recalling the event as "the great break-up of 2010", I spent the evening with a large group of people, many of whom have no problem with me personally, but many of whom have personal problems with others of the many, but tolerated each other for the simple fact of getting along and being civil and other phrases which suggest a mutual disdain masked with friendliness. (Reading that back seems like I'm calling such people two-faced, which I'm not really but incidentally that does coincide with January being named after the Roman god Janus - the god of new beginnings often visually depicted as having two faces, one looking back retrospectively and one looking to the future. Funny how stuff links up.) As the stroke of January approached, the air between parties became bitter, or maybe it was because it was Winter. Either way, by 11:45pm it was clear that one lot of people wished to vacate via taxi; a taxi which did not arrive until 11:53pm (or something, I was fairly tipsy by this point and being fed information that someone hates someone else and someone said things about someone's dress or something and someone's hair was probably pulled). Our friend, the taxi, managed to get a group of six (probably) of us to somewhere else by the time 11:59pm came around. Upon leaving the taxi to walk somewhere more indoorsy, someone probably collapsed onto the snow (or slush) covered ground and fireworks went off in the distance all around. Any single one of these seconds I was living through could have been the momentous midnight maker, but with no TV, radio, or Greenwich-synchronised time-telling device to tell us exactly which one it was, that entire walk from the taxi to the front door became magical. Except it wasn't. It was a walk to the front door after getting out a taxi after a night out. The world carried on as normal, just as it always does.
I haven't become cynical of celebrating New Year (as many of the people who can see the crap I put on Facebook might often think), but there are those who use the humble realm of Facebook to proclaim how the new year is an excuse for a new start, a new me, a new diet, a new change of underwear, a new dog, a new calendar... Somehow I don't particularly see the appeal in altering my outlook on life or eating habits based solely on the fact that the little '2011' in the corner of my computer screen is henceforth to be replaced with a '2012'. My outlook on life has always been mediocre with occasional hits and occasional misses and I don't believe that any force or power on the planet will take notice and make the next 365 days (or is it 366 this time?) filled with chocolate and rainbows and boobs.
This portion of the Internet will still exist and occasionally churn out gormless crap (like this) erratically and sporadically, despite my best intentions to keep doing this on a weekly basis. The fact that it's been over three weeks since the last one and that today is Saturday just proves how incoherent my posting-every-Wednesday mentality has become. Having said that, don't expect anything too special on the 4th, if anything at all.
Incidentally, once again I don't have anyone to kiss at midnight.
Saturday 31 December 2011
Wednesday 7 December 2011
The Festive Spirit
In the midst of hand-scrawled sheets of lined A4, books big enough to squash rats, clothes that haven't been hung up again days after being discarded onto the futon, half a packet of malted milks, an empty mug, a plate with nay but a splattering of disused tomato ketchup left upon it and the cold air of a house in December without the central heating on, he sits at the computer, in between finishing one mammoth essay and preparing to start another, and tries to collect all the thoughts and musings he's had brewing up over the last three weeks. And, do you know what? He's gone blank again.
Now that December's actually arrived, I don't feel so cynical about people getting excited in preparation for Christmas any more. Sure, I don't exactly get into the festive spirit until about 7pm on Christmas Eve - and even then I quickly snap out of it by the time The Queen's on - but I don't mind others getting excited during the month of December. But this year seems to have taken the proverbial candy cane. My Facebook News Feed (because I'm, like, so up to date, you get me?) faced a torrent of festive, and somewhat illiterate, abuse from the easily distracted. "omg soo exited for xmas" was just one of the fictional examples I just made up to give you the impression of what I faced... in the middle of November.
You know who I blame? Coca-Cola. Well, not necessarily the drinks manufacturers themselves, but the infamous traditional television advert that comes this time each year. For those who may be reading this from Mars or have been under extremely heavy sedation for a vast chunk of life, the Christmas-themed advert for Coca-Cola depicts a morbidly obese, myopic, elderly man, who clearly hasn't shaved since Take That first split up, riding around streets littered with as many people as there are snowflakes in a giant red truck with an obscene amount of fairy lights stapled to it so that he can pass around retro-style glass Coca-Cola bottles to children. Essentially, Band Aid (and subsequently, Band Aid 20) needn't have sang "Do They Know It's Christmas?" at all if only Coca-Cola felt like they could've just cancelled Africa's debt with a snap of their fingers. Nevertheless, for the masses, the first sight of the eagerly anticipated Coca-Cola Christmas advert is the first big signifier that Christmas is on the way. The fact that this momentous occasion happened in November this year made me somewhat irritated at the socio-cultural phenomenon of the Facebook-status boom. That plus it happened during the results show of the X Factor, which just makes me wonder why Facebook itself didn't just develop a consciousness and shoot itself there and then after a vast activity overload.
For others though, the apparently now sadly departed Toys R Us TV spot (which, for the sake of nostalgia, I have included a little linky there) gets people all of a merry. And why do I call it "apparently now sadly departed"? Because even though Toys R Us are still advertising on TV this festive season, they've given the advertising promo a complete revamp. Gone is the magical place we drive down the animated road towards. Gone is Geoffrey the Giraffe, who assured us there are millions of toys all under one roof. Now we get a CGI Toys R Us catalogue with the enchanting, night-time singy voice being replaced by someone who got fired from singing The Tweenies' theme tune and told us there is such a child label as a "Toys R Us kid". For the benefit of all that is right with the world, I won't be including a link to it for two reasons: 1) You can probably catch it on TV right now as it's currently running as opposed to the 90s advert which, as you might have guessed, is not, and 2) because I don't like it.
Other cultural signifiers which allude to the oncoming of the Christmas period come from the world of popular music. "Christmas" can easily be defined as a musical genre in its own right, with the cheesy, the sublime, the heartwarming, The Darkness and the easily-sing-along-able-to all featuring at this time of the year. Songs like the aforementioned Band Aid effort, Shakin' Stevens, Wizzard and Slade have all integrated themselves into the subconscious of many that it's hard not to enjoy them, "Last Christmas" is a nice song haunted by the fact that it was, in fact, Wham! that sang it in the first place, Cliff Richard will always be present and by the time it's taken me to finish this entire piece, Mariah Carey still won't have finished squawking the intro to "All I Want For Christmas Is You".
For many though, the recent resurgence in popularity for festive slanging match "Fairytale Of New York" has gone from strength to strength, which is unfortunate since it took the untimely death of singer Kirsty MacColl in the December of 2000 to boost it. Since then, the song's been praised by many and criticised by the prudish (mostly because is has the word "faggot" in it and non-gay people think it's probably offensive even though they have no concept of context) and has time and time again been cast into the shadow of Christmas number 2, or 3, or 5, or whatever, never managing to reach the festive top spot.
As for myself, I care a great deal for The Pogues' Christmas effort, but that was mostly because I like to go for the underdog, the relatively obscure and unknown and the generally underrated things in life. However, with so many people feeling the love for "Fairytale Of New York", while I don't deny it being a definitive Christmas song, I feel like I have to have a new underdog, a new joint favourite. And luckily, two years ago I rediscovered a Christmas song from my childhood. And I know I remember it from my childhood because my sister told me recently that she held the same sentiments for this particular tune, even after our mother told both of us she was completely unaware of it. Who's the crazy one now, hmmm? Anyway, as much as it appears around Christmas, Kate Bush's "December Will Be Magic Again" revolves around, well, just that, December. As such, I've been doing well to stick to a regime of listening to the song at least once a day from the first of this month, which, I suppose, is more than I can say for vowing to myself to post to this thing once a week. Give me another three weeks to get back to this.
Meanwhile, I'll probably forget to listen to Kate Bush somewhere around December the fifteenth.
Now that December's actually arrived, I don't feel so cynical about people getting excited in preparation for Christmas any more. Sure, I don't exactly get into the festive spirit until about 7pm on Christmas Eve - and even then I quickly snap out of it by the time The Queen's on - but I don't mind others getting excited during the month of December. But this year seems to have taken the proverbial candy cane. My Facebook News Feed (because I'm, like, so up to date, you get me?) faced a torrent of festive, and somewhat illiterate, abuse from the easily distracted. "omg soo exited for xmas" was just one of the fictional examples I just made up to give you the impression of what I faced... in the middle of November.
You know who I blame? Coca-Cola. Well, not necessarily the drinks manufacturers themselves, but the infamous traditional television advert that comes this time each year. For those who may be reading this from Mars or have been under extremely heavy sedation for a vast chunk of life, the Christmas-themed advert for Coca-Cola depicts a morbidly obese, myopic, elderly man, who clearly hasn't shaved since Take That first split up, riding around streets littered with as many people as there are snowflakes in a giant red truck with an obscene amount of fairy lights stapled to it so that he can pass around retro-style glass Coca-Cola bottles to children. Essentially, Band Aid (and subsequently, Band Aid 20) needn't have sang "Do They Know It's Christmas?" at all if only Coca-Cola felt like they could've just cancelled Africa's debt with a snap of their fingers. Nevertheless, for the masses, the first sight of the eagerly anticipated Coca-Cola Christmas advert is the first big signifier that Christmas is on the way. The fact that this momentous occasion happened in November this year made me somewhat irritated at the socio-cultural phenomenon of the Facebook-status boom. That plus it happened during the results show of the X Factor, which just makes me wonder why Facebook itself didn't just develop a consciousness and shoot itself there and then after a vast activity overload.
For others though, the apparently now sadly departed Toys R Us TV spot (which, for the sake of nostalgia, I have included a little linky there) gets people all of a merry. And why do I call it "apparently now sadly departed"? Because even though Toys R Us are still advertising on TV this festive season, they've given the advertising promo a complete revamp. Gone is the magical place we drive down the animated road towards. Gone is Geoffrey the Giraffe, who assured us there are millions of toys all under one roof. Now we get a CGI Toys R Us catalogue with the enchanting, night-time singy voice being replaced by someone who got fired from singing The Tweenies' theme tune and told us there is such a child label as a "Toys R Us kid". For the benefit of all that is right with the world, I won't be including a link to it for two reasons: 1) You can probably catch it on TV right now as it's currently running as opposed to the 90s advert which, as you might have guessed, is not, and 2) because I don't like it.
Other cultural signifiers which allude to the oncoming of the Christmas period come from the world of popular music. "Christmas" can easily be defined as a musical genre in its own right, with the cheesy, the sublime, the heartwarming, The Darkness and the easily-sing-along-able-to all featuring at this time of the year. Songs like the aforementioned Band Aid effort, Shakin' Stevens, Wizzard and Slade have all integrated themselves into the subconscious of many that it's hard not to enjoy them, "Last Christmas" is a nice song haunted by the fact that it was, in fact, Wham! that sang it in the first place, Cliff Richard will always be present and by the time it's taken me to finish this entire piece, Mariah Carey still won't have finished squawking the intro to "All I Want For Christmas Is You".
For many though, the recent resurgence in popularity for festive slanging match "Fairytale Of New York" has gone from strength to strength, which is unfortunate since it took the untimely death of singer Kirsty MacColl in the December of 2000 to boost it. Since then, the song's been praised by many and criticised by the prudish (mostly because is has the word "faggot" in it and non-gay people think it's probably offensive even though they have no concept of context) and has time and time again been cast into the shadow of Christmas number 2, or 3, or 5, or whatever, never managing to reach the festive top spot.
As for myself, I care a great deal for The Pogues' Christmas effort, but that was mostly because I like to go for the underdog, the relatively obscure and unknown and the generally underrated things in life. However, with so many people feeling the love for "Fairytale Of New York", while I don't deny it being a definitive Christmas song, I feel like I have to have a new underdog, a new joint favourite. And luckily, two years ago I rediscovered a Christmas song from my childhood. And I know I remember it from my childhood because my sister told me recently that she held the same sentiments for this particular tune, even after our mother told both of us she was completely unaware of it. Who's the crazy one now, hmmm? Anyway, as much as it appears around Christmas, Kate Bush's "December Will Be Magic Again" revolves around, well, just that, December. As such, I've been doing well to stick to a regime of listening to the song at least once a day from the first of this month, which, I suppose, is more than I can say for vowing to myself to post to this thing once a week. Give me another three weeks to get back to this.
Meanwhile, I'll probably forget to listen to Kate Bush somewhere around December the fifteenth.
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