Admittedly it isn't one of my best ideas to start a blog so close to Christmas; a time when everyone is preoccupied with the seasonal festivities or "getting pissed out of their face" as we'd call it any other time of the year. As usual social network sites have rapidly become unbearable too, (hence why I am taking refuge writing this) constantly inundated with the voices of cynics and their bah humbugs, or even worse are the ones who smugly post about how awesome their wrapping skills are or about how much they're enjoying the food or alcohol or in the most gut-wrenching of cases; time spent with their partner.
Surprisingly I'm not against Christmas, I do think it's great to have an excuse to spend time with family, it's just the commercialisation of it all that gets to me.
It seems as if over the festive period we allow our brains to rot away, 'tis the season of course; the season to zone out in front of the TV like the living dead consumerists we really are. TV knows that we'll all end up doing this. Yes, TV is clever. Or more so the companies who year after year manage to fling some godawful shite our way in the form of annual advertising campaigns, successfully dividing the opinion of the nation, and becoming the conversational highlight in the average mundane office job. This year has certainly not been an exception.
From the John Lewis advert featuring a typical middle-class little boy, and its song choice of an extremely whiny cover of The Smiths' Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want, the advert was destined to win the hearts of David Cameron and other like-minded idiots who would shop in the store. The horrendous Littlewoods car-crash of an advert, wasn't any better, if the song wasn't bad enough it was the fact it taught kids that their lovely 'muvvas' have a spare grand to spend on Macbooks and Xboxes and D&G watches. Then there's smug faced twat Jamie Oliver on the Sainsbury's ad, showing us how to buy fresh ingredients at just 4 times the price of buying a ready meal, and how to cook them in under 7 hours allowing us adequate time to gather round the fireplace, singing festive songs and marvelling at how Grandma's behaviour is getting rowdy as she sips at her 3rd glass of sherry. Speaking of TV chefs, I dread to think how much Gordon Ramsay will be paid to present his live cooking show tomorrow.
Yes the adverts are truly abhorrent, but the worse thing for me is actually the films. Christ, the films! How many more times can they show Miracle on 34th Street, Love Actually and It's A Wonderful Life? Just how many more remakes of A Christmas Carol can actually be accomplished before the earth ingests itself out of despair?
If a picture paints a thousand words then a video must paint a hell of a lot more, (I was going to figure out the frames per second and times by the duration, but I'm too lazy and maths is most definitely not my forte) and this visual reference generally sums up my feelings towards Christmas TV.
I spend a lot of time brooding but I'd say Christmas TV definitely brings out the worst in me.
Anyway I shall try and end on a high. I'd be lying if I said there were many Christmas related punk songs I enjoy, or even that many in existence (bar the overplayed and genre questionable Fairytale of New York) but this rather brilliant cover does the job for me. Merry fucking Christmas.
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