Tag Archives: bah humbug

Take a Peek at BBC's Christmas {TV}

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Take a look at some of the highlights of the BBC’s bumper selection of festive TV fare with our Christmas showreel.

Among the great clips watch the hair-raising moment when the Top Gear presenters realise which country they have landed in and what lies ahead; see Matt Smith as the ghost of Christmas past in Doctor Who – A Christmas Carol, laugh as the Royle’s prepare for Christmas day in The Royle Family and see some of the drama that lies aheads for the residents of Albert Square in EastEnders and take a look at a selection of Matt Lucas and David Walliams‘ latest comic creations from their new show Come Fly With Me.

Entertainment
Featuring impressive entertainment from Top Gear Special, Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special, Giles And Sue Live The Good Life, The Rob Brydon Show and Jools’ Annual Hootenanny.

Drama
Featuring stunning drama from Doctor Who – A Christmas Carol, Whistle And I’ll Come To You, Upstairs Downstairs, Toast, Eric And Ernie and EastEnders.

Oxfam + Maths Expert = Formula for a Happy Christmas!

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7,000 calories, three weeks off work, 15cm of snow and no more than 10 hours of shopping. These are four of the factors that make Christmas perfect according to Oxfam Unwrapped, the charity’s gift range, which has teamed up with maths expert Chris Green today to unveil its formula for a happy Christmas.

The full mathematical formula looks like this (click to enlarge):

Rick Lay, Oxfam Unwrapped campaign manager, said: “Christmas is the busiest time for Oxfam Unwrapped. Around 80% of the money we raise is given over the festive period, so we were really keen to find out what makes people happy at this time of year; what makes a perfect Christmas.

“It’s great to see that ultimately, happiness at Christmas comes down to quite simple things, such as enjoying time off work to spend with friends and family.”

Key ‘happiness factors’ include:

  • Number of calories consumed on Christmas Day (any more than 7,000 calories and you’ll be too stuffed to enjoy yourself)
  • Amount of time off work (just one day off boosts happiness by 70%, with three weeks being the optimum amount)
  • Centimetres of snow (15cm is ideal)
  • Family arguments (more than five and happiness levels plummet)
  • Number of hours spent trawling the shops for gifts (any more than 10 hours and shopping-induced stress sees happiness decline rapidly)
  • Miles driven to see friends and family (0 miles is ideal, with 500 miles generating a 40% reduction in happiness levels)
  • The number of gifts you receive has an impact on happiness (6 gifts gets you to optimum happiness levels), but….
  • ….most crucially, how many gifts you give (even giving just one present makes a huge difference to happiness levels, increasing Christmas enjoyment by 50%).

Chris Green, the mathematician who compiled the formula for Oxfam, adds:

“We conducted research into some of the key factors that people associate with Christmas and calculated optimum scores for each factor.”

What’s your score? For any like-minded boffins out there who want to work out the formula for themselves, this is what your scores mean:

< 50% Roll on January!
50 – 60% Frosty the snowman
61 – 70% Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas
71 – 80% You’ll be rockin’ around the Christmas tree
> 80% You wish it could be Christmas every day

“The good news is that most factors that impact on Christmas happiness are well within our control. Also, despite a lot of people thinking that Christmas is overly materialistic these days, as the formula shows, these types of things aren’t that significant.

“Most people will score between 50 – 100%, any less than 50% and it’s a case of ‘roll on January’!”

Rick Lay adds: “With the act of giving gifts topping the happiness factors, we hope that it will make people realise that Christmas is a time they can make a real difference to the happiness of others. A gift from the Oxfam Unwrapped range will not only make friends and family smile more, it will change the lives of people living in poverty all over the world.  Surely that’s got to mean a happier Christmas all around.”

Oh, Big Ceri got ‘da Yuletide Blues…And he got it Baaaaad {Ceri’s Column}

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Bah Humbug

Yeah, to this day I have no idea what the hell that means. Sounds cool though…plus it’s a pretty apt opener. Predictable but…bollocks I’m deconstructing my work before I’ve even started. Right, onwards….

I am an adult. I know, shit isn’t it? I didn’t think I was one. I know now, I am. Why? Fucking Christmas. I never thought I would EVER take the lord (‘s days) name in vain. Just did though.

When one starts regarding jolly old Xmas as the season of seemingly pointless spending, you’re an adult. When tinsel starts looking cheap and flammable instead of pretty and magical, you’re an adult. When shopping centre Santas seem like paedophiles, you’re an adult…an awfully presumptuous and cynical adult, but still….

 ‘Tis the ball-aching-wallet-emptying-overdraft-raping season to be grumpy. Food costs too much. Gifts cost too much. Christmas crackers? Cardboard and toys made by Cambodian orphans, (I’m sure they tried their best) – Waaaay to pricey.

So many rituals we adhere to for the year’s final month just perplexes me. Why are gifts put under an Alpine/Scandinavian/East Anglian evergreen tree? Why do we tell kids a corporate figure invented by a popular soft drink brand (*Cough* Coca-Cola *Splutter*…that doesn’t work in writing…) visits them at night depositing these often numerous gifts? Why do these stupid fucking kids believe us? Why do we hang large socks in a frankly greed-frenzied plea for even MORE gifts? Why do we hang shit on the tree? Why do we hang plastic, or if you’re middle class like me, glass orbs from the tree? Why does the reindeer, an animal that is quite obviously inferior to most mammals you can eat, play any part at all? I like jaguars; where the hell are the big cats at Xmas? Why must Santa have an army of supernatural beings at his (probably huge) house/sweatshop, slaving away all year round making upwards of 20 gifts per child for every (Northern Hemisphere based) child in the world? Kids these days want stuff you can buy at Argos, why do these elves bother? Why is he called St. Nicholas? He isn’t St. Nicholas. That was some Turkish Christian who died before William the conqueror was born…uh….I think….Yeah, feel free to correct me on that one.

I remember that I used to really adore Christmas for the first 10 or so years of my life. Then it became OK…I mean, I still got a tonne of free stuff. Now, it’s hell.

 When I was a child I left out sherry and mince pies for “Siôn Corn” (Welsh for Santa Claus…it means “John Horn”…no idea why). I also left carrots on our worryingly accessible roof for the flying reindeer. Every morning, before even caring that I’d just hit the toy-jackpot, I’d check to see if my red coat wearing idol had eaten and enjoyed my offering. He always had. One Xmas, as a personal, “Mum and Dad can be oh so funny sometimes”, semi-child-hating prank, my dad ate the offering, (Yes, Santa doesn’t exist) and left a note. It read, in Welsh of course:

“Hello Kids,

Thank you for the Tesco mince pies and the glass of sherry. But, for future reference, I like scones and 7Up more. I still left you prezzies, but next year can you try and get it right.

Merry Xmas,

Santa”

I wept. A lot. The bike I opened 25 minutes later did help assuage my weeping, but my one seemingly gigantic cock up in trying to appease the only “real” supernatural being in the world haunted me…until I worked out he wasn’t real 2 months later.

Yes, I was a cynical little bugger at the age of 7 too.

But how I worked out he was fictitious is a good story. It isn’t a funny story – just an important one. A story every child should be told at the age of 7. My painful discovery would soon become a time honoured rite of passage if every child had the event described below forced upon them. I’d be a pioneer…in dream shattering…actually, just forget I said that. Ugh

Any-fecking-way, I was watched an episode of The Simpsons, (the only TV show I’ve loved and continue to be entertained by since my early childhood). Bart had tried to catch Santa, or something. I don’t really recall the plot that well, but that’s the gist. Yeah so it turns out that Santa was actually Homer or…some other character just dressed up as old St. Nic. The utter soul-crushing devastation washed over me and drowned my childish dreams. It happened to be that I was young enough to understand that he couldn’t possibly be real. I mean, I had a relatively advanced grasp of logic for a pre-teen, (I have been raised in a family of both real and cod philosophers sprinkled with a healthy dash of teachers, dentists and I’m sure there’s a lawyer or two…God, I’m so middle-class). But it also seems I wasn’t old enough for this fact not to hurt. I’d had an inkling he can’t have been real – I used to think, “He goes to every home in one night?”, “How does he only get most and not all the gifts on my list if he’s so awesome?” and, most logically of all, “Why did the standard and number of my presents sharply increase when my dad got promoted?” But it was the knowing he didn’t exist that nearly killed me.

Now if this event became the norm, kids could get saved from this ultimate trauma.

Is this how Dr. King felt when delivering the “I have a dream” speech?

Jeez, I overstep the mark faaaaar too often. Right, eggnog latte time.

As far as possible, boycott the nasty 35 {Carl Packman}

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Imagine this: every day a big kid at your school takes the money your parent/carer gives you for a measly meal of chicken burger and chips and a can of cherry pop. You’re left asking your mate for a bite on their corned beef sandwich and a couple of crisps.

When you go home you’re asked how school was, to which you reply, in your nonchalant way, fine! The next question, intrusively, is: “…and how was your lunch?” Your only option, in order to save face, and those long dreaded conversations which end in the questioner calling the school, embarrassing, is to lie and say it was fine – even though you had none, and even if you had it would’ve been crap as your school employs a woman with 6 cats to make what might colloquially be called the food.

Imagine the next day that person who steals your food money says they have food for you, but you have to do errands for them. You ask what kind of errands. Their response is to get you to clean their shoes, and the shoes of all their friends, while someone who used to do your job watches you to make sure you do it right. After you’ve done that, they give you a small amount of food – an amount so small that it would take that person only 0.25 of a person’s food money, out of the 20 or 30 they steal from, to afford the food.

Imagine then the wage packet of your parent/carer halved because some people, in the city, started to fuck around, making money by giving someone else’s money to people who were earning 10 times less a year. Your parent/carer decided to continue giving you the same lunch money (on the naïve thought it went towards a decent cause – which was taken by the bully anyway – but the quality of your clothing diminished, your dinner became smaller and of worse quality, you had to move out of your flat near the trees to a flat near no trees, and your lasagne dish turned into Welsh rarebit with peperoni and pasta).

All the time, the bully at school supports your “austerity”, after all, they still get their labour (ie your lunch money) but you get less, and are, thus, less inclined to seek alternatives to the existence of opening your arse to the shaft of a bastard!

Well, believe me, this is what is happening with the 35 bosses of the “big companies” who think it would be a mistake for the chancellor to “water down” his budget, reducing half a million jobs in the public sector and possibly doing the same amount, perhaps more, to the private sector, in order to level national debt – something which has been a reality for-flipping-ever, and is nowhere near as rocky as was Canada, who in the nineties were 101% in debt of their gross domestic product (so, Ozzy Osborne can stop using them as an example).

Yup, we’re being shafted by the cuts, all of us, no matter what sector you are in; the chancellor is screwing you over. Oh, unless you are a loan shark – you’re making a killing!! And the bosses of 35 companies don’t mind, because they still buy your labour under value, still make tremendous amounts of cash, and you continue to live in your prison.

Hey, I don’t know about you, but I might take the only power I have this Christmas – how I love Christmas – and take my money elsewhere. Yup. I will not buy anything from those 35 companies mentioned here. Because if the government wants to screw us over, I want nice people to at least lend me their hearts. If they can’t do that, then fuck them.

Londoners Life Part 3 by Phil Ryan {Opinions}

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Christmas is coming. It’s November but to London’s shop keepers the herds of shoppers are easily spooked. Like hunters, they are carefully baiting their traps, staying downwind of the easily confused consumers but they are readying their weapons all the same. The window displays are slowly turning into confusing artworks. A stick-thin model girl nailed to a reindeer with glitter pouring out of her knees. It’s where the window display merchandisers in large department stores get to show what they can really do, although it seems much of their festive season output resembles a badly planned acid trip.

For the less fanciful shops, Santas and snow scenes seem to be appearing on every aisle. The sponsored lights are going up in Bond Street,  now, in November. I’m not sure what this year’s theme is – probably celebrating the miraculous birth of our Lord Jesus Christ with a tasteful The Three Wise men at *insert-generic-store-name-here theme. Each bringing those well known biblical gifts, an Xbox, an ipod and the ‘scream and then watch me vomit’ little chav doll from Mattel. That’s not the Mattell Toy company by the by that’s from Dave Mattell from Dagenham ‘Toys r Cheap and Cut price Booze’ store.

Like the anxious shopkeepers you can smell the money in the air, or at least the expectation of money. Recession? What recession? ‘Tis the season to be exploited. Sad really. It’s really not quite as Dickensian as it could be. But the snow is forecast. And London will do its best. So look out for rosy cheeked pickpockets operated by eastern European gangmasters, feisty chestnut sellers pushing crack and Scrooge as played by the local Councils closing down old people’s homes and care centres. Tis the season to be jolly spend thrifts. Courtesy of MasterCard or Barclaycard presumably.
Barclaycard. These are the same people who are sponsoring the newest fad in town. The Boris bike. The easily accessible bicycle you can ride around town on. No more smelly and hot tube trains. Just leap onto a Boris bike and away you go! Zoom through the parks. The little back streets. They’ve settled in rather quickly I must say. Everywhere you go centrally in London at least. I note that places like say Kidbrooke or Stonebridge Park appear to have been missed out in the locations of bike docking stations. Mainly because the bikes would be in a skip fire or more likely on a container ship to Liberia within hours of deployment. In a way you could say it’s a kind of new classism by bike. But still, you’ll see them weaving and wobbling in out of traffic around Trafalgar Square, the City and Kensington High Street with those type of people you just somehow expect to see on them. I’ve not tried one myself. Death has never appealed to me. Clearly there is a hidden agenda though. It just occurred to me I must be missing something. It’s not a class thing at all. Perhaps it’s a new job creation thing. You can just see the meeting, City Hall, midnight, written on a whiteboard in red.

How can we create job places in a crowded job market? Answer; Put lots of professional people on unwieldy heavy bicycles, take some money from them and then hurl them like baby ducks into friendly London traffic. A nightmarish concoction of rumbling huge lorries, confused mini cab drivers, belligerent black-taxi drivers, Kamikaze Pizza bike delivery boys. Fiendish eh? But I shouldn’t carp. Here in London we are innovators, we pride ourselves on it. Take our restaurant scene for example, where else are you able to choose from dishes whose descriptions are so pretentious you can see the waiter smirking from thirty feet away? In my area it’s rife. Who writes this stuff? “Jus of spring mint and beagle shattered with lemon butter and fresh wild Ecuadorian bong berries lovingly smothered on apricot battered tender codlet tarragon peppered steaks fried au on nuit”. Uh? Then like an infant it either has to be explained to you by some show-off out of work actor. (Nothing wrong with being an actor – Editor) Meanwhile you sit like some Alzheimers patient nodding and smiling still clueless. Or you take a chance and hope it doesn’t taste like fried baby vomit in a glove. Don’t get me wrong, I like creativity and I like food. Just tell me what it is. I’ll order quickly, honest I will.

Having said that, the descriptions dazzle most people long enough for them to not notice the price tag. Which is the whole idea. Normal food at eye watering prices with undecipherable descriptions. But it’s not about the food, so I’m told, it’s the place, the ambience, the vibe and most importantly what it says about you. Vacuous? Empty? No. It’s a London thing.