The run-up to Christmas

The following is an extract from the English-to-Retail Cretin Dictionary:

The run-up to Christmas (noun): any time after the end of the Back To School! promotion, typically mid-September.

Of course, for most of the rest of us, the run-up to Christmas has a slightly more reasonable start date.  Some favour the middle of November, whilst others of us try our hardest to hold out until the first week of December.  But all of this just compounds the problem, as I see it; Christmas shouldn't need a run-up at all.

Things which are difficult need a run-up.  If you need to jump over a particularly wide gap (for whatever reason that may be!) and you're not sure you're going to make it, you take a run-up.  Sportsmen need a run-up to try and maximise performance.  We use a run-up to gather momentum, when we know we will really need to exert ourselves.

Christmas shouldn't be like that.  We should be able to relax, at Christmas - to spend time with family and friends.  It should be a time to unwind, and enjoy ourselves.  We shouldn't need to take a run-up, before entering the fray, eyes wide, arms flailing, hoping only that we emerge unhurt at the other side.  We should be able to enjoy all the great things about Christmas - and there are many - without letting it get on top of us.

Personally, I feel it's much easier to enjoy Christmas - Christmas as it should be - without all the retail hype.  Without the run-up.

Heatwave decorum

So, I gather it's quite hot at the moment?

Unusually, for Britain, we are having an exceptionally warm Autumn, at the moment, with temperatures in excess of 30º at the end of September, and beginning of October.  Quite remarkable.  But let's not lose our heads, please…

Hot weather - at any time of year - is no excuse suddenly to act or look like a slob.  In the heat, people cease to care how they look, how they come across to others, what impressions they give.  And they are not ashamed; they do this with brazen impunity, and with barefaced disregard for all conventions of decency.

Nobody wants to see people walking down the street in revealing clothing which manages somehow to be both shapeless and far too tight, simultaneously.  Topless middle-aged men, their sweaty beer-guts gleaming in the sunlight, hair plastered to their chests with a combination of perspiration and cheap lager, waddling through town-centres in the middle of the day.

In winter, people retain some sense of style, and decorum.  They wear clothes with gravitas - coats, scarves, gloves.  But when the sun comes out, there is a wild notion that it has suddenly become acceptable to walk around with acres of ruddy bare flesh on show.

If the heat is making you uncomfortable - no one cares.  Please dress normally, and learn to bear the discomfort, rather than subjecting everyone else to your hideous summer wardrobe.

Christmas Song Sweepstake

I am thinking of running a "Christmas Song Sweepstake" this year.  Anyone interested in playing can contact me, and they will be randomly assigned a high street shop, and a well-known Christmas song.  (I am hoping that enough people will sign up to cover all the major high street chains, and the main Christmas "favourites".)

Then, everyone who's playing has to listen out for Christmas songs when they're shopping.  The first time you hear a Christmas song being played as background music in a shop, make a note of which shop you're in, and which song they were playing - then email me the details as soon as you are able.

The first instance of Christmas music being played in shops that I hear of will be posted on this Blog.  There will be a prize each for the person whose shop it was and the person whose song it was.

If you're interested please get in touch, with your full name, and email address.  (In an effort to prevent cheating, fraud, identity theft, and other scurrilous devilry, you will not be told which shop, or which song, you have been given.)

So...  Who's in?!

Terms and conditions apply.

Hot drinks

I drink a lot of coffee.  I may have mentioned this before.  But I would never have coffee as my drink with a meal...

I've never understood how people can drink hot drinks, with savoury food.  I know a lot of people do do this (particularly at breakfast - a cup of tea or coffee with a savoury breakfast) but I'm afraid I just don't get it.

Hot drinks are a sweet thing; I'm quite happy to have a coffee with biscuits, or with cake, or with a croissant.  But the flavour of coffee doesn't work with, say, sausages.  Or a roast dinner.

The general rule is that you should only drink a hot drink as an accompaniment to food if you could happily dip that food into said hot drink, without it creating something truly disgusting.  And, I'm sorry, but if you'd be able to dip fried eggs and bacon into a cup of tea or coffee, and then eat it, there's definitely something wrong with you!

Breaking sandwich news

I stopped by at Waitrose today - it appears they have stopped selling the Beef & Stilton sandwich which I mentioned in my last Blog post, in comparison with a Tesco sandwich that has the same filling.  Disappointing, I thought.

Also, in relation to the previous post: when I said "I would definitely eat this sandwich again", I wasn't talking about the particular sandwich I ate yesterday - that would be horrible!  I meant that I would buy the product again, because I enjoyed the sandwich.

Sandwich review: British Beef and Stilton, from Tesco "Finest" range

Having not seen this on the shelves before, I can only assume that this is a relatively new product for Tesco.  The recipe (sliced Beef, Stilton cheese, caramelised onion chutney, and green salad, in wholemeal bread) is identical to that of a sandwich that Waitrose have been selling for some time.  I have enjoyed Waitrose' version on a number of occasions, so I was interested to see how this one from Tesco would stack up.

Having identical components, the two sandwiches are very similar.  The combination of the Stilton and the green salad is always a pleasant surprise.  I was, as I had said, eager to see whether the Tesco sandwich would be as good as the Waitrose one - and I was pleased to discover that, on the whole, it was.  The only area where the Tesco sandwich loses out to its Waitrose counterpart is in the matter of the caramelised onion chutney - Waitrose' sandwich uses better quality, and therefore more flavoursome, onion chutney, which gives a slightly tangier edge.  Whilst there was nothing wrong with Tesco's onion chutney, it was a touch blander than I had perhaps been used to.

Having begun two paragraphs with the word "having", I will now begin a third in like fashion.  On the subject of price, the Tesco sandwich cost £2.50.  It is a little while, now, since I have indulged in the Waitrose variety, and therefore I cannot remember how much it cost.  I would imagine it to be a little more expensive than the Tesco one, but I have no evidence with which to back up this assumption.  However, I did not think £2.50 an unreasonable price, for the Tesco sandwich.

Overall, I enjoyed the Tesco sandwich - the minor issue of the caramelised onion chutney aside, I thought it was a jolly good effort by the Tesco Sandwich Chaps.  I would definitely eat this sandwich again.

F*ck you, I won't drink what you tell me

Sidenote: the RATM-esque title is due to the fact that, as I discovered recently, eighteen months on from the bizarre campaign to get "Killing In The Name" to the UK Christmas Number One spot, nightclub DJs are still shoehorning this nineteen-year-old profanity-filled metal anthem into their sets between heavily quantised numbers by Akon and Lady GaGa.


One of the reasons I can often be a little dubious about going for a "night out" is because I dislike being pressured into drinking drinks that I don't like.

If I'm drinking, I will generally have whisky - straight, with no ice.  (This is another contentious issue, but not something I shall go into now.)  Ideally, a decent single malt Scotch is preferred, but on the whole I will drink most whiskies.  Very occasionally, I like a glass of wine.

Unlike a lot of men (if I can call myself that), I don't really drink beer.  And I certainly won't go anywhere near those lurid "alcopops" concoctions!

This isn't simply snobbishness - it's about personal preference.  Some drinks I like, other drinks I don't.  All I'm asking is that other people respect these likes and dislikes - as I will always try to do for them.

What I dislike about the whole "night out" culture is the complete lack of discernment, in regards to beverages.  The idea that you will throw anything down your throat, providing the alcohol content is high enough, and not give a fig what it actually is that you're drinking.  I like to drink drinks that I actually enjoy - not just any old muck that happens to be around.

What's really silly, though, is the way someone will offer to buy a round of drinks, and then get the same drink for everyone.

I don't want "a pint" of something.  And I most definitely do not want to "do a shot" of anything.  And I never so much as hinted that I did!  People just assume that everyone's taste in drinks is as vulgar as their own.

This most commonly occurs with a drink called the Jägerbomb.  Comprising a shot of Jägermeister submerged in a glass of Red Bull, the mere smell of this vile brew is enough to make one feel nauseous.  Yet people persist in buying me Jägerbombs - despite the fact that I cannot stand them!

I have a friend who doesn't like olives.  I wouldn't buy him something - say, a pizza - with olives, just because everyone else is having that.  It ought to be the same with drinks.

If you want to buy me a drink, that's very generous of you, and I really do appreciate it - but surely, you'll first check what it is that I actually like?  Otherwise, you're just wasting your money, buying things that no one wants.

Recently, I decided not to do this any more.  No longer will I screw up my courage, and force myself to down these rancid potions, purely because of social pressure.  Some people will construe this as rudeness, no doubt.  But if someone is going to take offence because I don't enjoy drinking cheap tasteless lager, then that person probably wasn't that great a friend of mine anyway.  My real friends, I am sure, will be as considerate of my tastes as I will always be of theirs, and will make sure to ask who would like what, before ordering a round of drinks.