A town Christmas/a country Christmas
One of my favourite Sherlock Holmes stories is the adventure of the blue carbuncle. Not just because it’s as clever and inventive as one would expect any Sherlock Holmes story to be, but because, rather unusually, it takes place at Christmas. Not a Christmas in the sleeping, sinister countryside, but Christmas in London. There are several scenes in London locations, one of the most evocative e being Covent Garden. I was listening to the story on my iPod once and happened to be strolling through Covent Garden at the time and, all things considered, I think it would be better served if it were populated by tradesmen selling geese and so on rather that the twats that impose themselves on the tourists by busking. Sorry, but painting yourself silver and standing very still is not performance art, it’s a sign of mental illness.
Dickens, who to all intents and purposes invented the modern Christmas, had different ideas about the yule season. Despite being a Londoner his invocation of the season to be jolly was a country Christmas, described in the Pickwick Papers when Pickwick and his fellow Pickwickians spend Christmas at Dingly Dell.
Despite the many attractions that town offers during the Christmas season, such as having drunk secretaries throw up on your shoes after a Christmas party, or being arrested for urinating against the offside rear wheel of a police car when caught short, the countryside does have its own pleasures at Christmas.
Of course, the principal and most celebrated one is being able to drive home from the pub while pissed but there are others, and for kids too. Much is made of the powers of the Nintendo Wii to entertain, and entertain more than one person at a time. In the countryside this same effect is produced by daubing a stick with some cow shit and chasing your siblings around. Not only is it more fun, cow shit is a good deal scarier than Resident Evil 4.
Life in London can get Dickensian at Christmas by the simple addition of beggers along the Strand. There was a fellow at Temple tube station recently begging and he had, not the traditional doggie on a string, but a soft toy dog to keep him company. The thing was, the soft toy dog was a cuddle rotweiller, if that’s not an oxymoron. I was a little taken aback that anyone would have a soft toy version of a vicious baby-eating breed, but I guess there’s no accounting for taste.
In the tourist tat shops of London you can get dolls of guardsmen, policemen and even the royals. Maybe they should also sell real life action figures; ‘Screaming Mad Jeff’ or ‘Smelly Dan’. And it doesn’t need to just be local characters, there are all sorts of people that make up the London street scene; ‘lost Japanese tourist’, ‘Australian backpacker who stops right at the top of the fucking escalator so that nobody can get past him and then unfolds a fucking map aggggggghhhhh’ (backpack sold separately’).
I’d like to see some Dickens action figures, or plush toys. How about a plush Bill Sykes and Bullseye, let’s see the grumpy mad bastard batter Nancy to death when he’s made of felt. Then you could have the graveyard adventure set from the start of ‘Great Expectations’, Pip and Magwitch sold separately. That scene has put the frighteners on countless kids through the years, why not bring it to life in the safety of your own living room.
The Victorians were lucky enough to have Charles Dickens to invent Christmas for them and do more or less a perfect job. Considering some of the ideas, like having a tree indoors, I think he did a pretty good job, prezzies, eating food that never gets consumed at any other time of year (nuts and marzipan, when else do you eat them, eh?). For mere mortals, it takes a family dynamic to invent Christmas traditions, like having a row, or playing special family games like ‘hunt the remote’ or that old favourite ‘find the batteries’. My addition to tradition is ‘if anyone talks during the Doctor Who special, I’ll kill them.’
Merry Christmas!
Dickens, who to all intents and purposes invented the modern Christmas, had different ideas about the yule season. Despite being a Londoner his invocation of the season to be jolly was a country Christmas, described in the Pickwick Papers when Pickwick and his fellow Pickwickians spend Christmas at Dingly Dell.
Despite the many attractions that town offers during the Christmas season, such as having drunk secretaries throw up on your shoes after a Christmas party, or being arrested for urinating against the offside rear wheel of a police car when caught short, the countryside does have its own pleasures at Christmas.
Of course, the principal and most celebrated one is being able to drive home from the pub while pissed but there are others, and for kids too. Much is made of the powers of the Nintendo Wii to entertain, and entertain more than one person at a time. In the countryside this same effect is produced by daubing a stick with some cow shit and chasing your siblings around. Not only is it more fun, cow shit is a good deal scarier than Resident Evil 4.
Life in London can get Dickensian at Christmas by the simple addition of beggers along the Strand. There was a fellow at Temple tube station recently begging and he had, not the traditional doggie on a string, but a soft toy dog to keep him company. The thing was, the soft toy dog was a cuddle rotweiller, if that’s not an oxymoron. I was a little taken aback that anyone would have a soft toy version of a vicious baby-eating breed, but I guess there’s no accounting for taste.
In the tourist tat shops of London you can get dolls of guardsmen, policemen and even the royals. Maybe they should also sell real life action figures; ‘Screaming Mad Jeff’ or ‘Smelly Dan’. And it doesn’t need to just be local characters, there are all sorts of people that make up the London street scene; ‘lost Japanese tourist’, ‘Australian backpacker who stops right at the top of the fucking escalator so that nobody can get past him and then unfolds a fucking map aggggggghhhhh’ (backpack sold separately’).
I’d like to see some Dickens action figures, or plush toys. How about a plush Bill Sykes and Bullseye, let’s see the grumpy mad bastard batter Nancy to death when he’s made of felt. Then you could have the graveyard adventure set from the start of ‘Great Expectations’, Pip and Magwitch sold separately. That scene has put the frighteners on countless kids through the years, why not bring it to life in the safety of your own living room.
The Victorians were lucky enough to have Charles Dickens to invent Christmas for them and do more or less a perfect job. Considering some of the ideas, like having a tree indoors, I think he did a pretty good job, prezzies, eating food that never gets consumed at any other time of year (nuts and marzipan, when else do you eat them, eh?). For mere mortals, it takes a family dynamic to invent Christmas traditions, like having a row, or playing special family games like ‘hunt the remote’ or that old favourite ‘find the batteries’. My addition to tradition is ‘if anyone talks during the Doctor Who special, I’ll kill them.’
Merry Christmas!
Labels: Christmas, Christmas Day, Dickens
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