As much as I tried* I simply couldn't get into the spirit of Christmas this year. The BBC's festive ad-filler that seemed to involve every BBC TV personality alive, dead, or yet to be born, did little to cheer my spirits. It's not that I'm a miserable codger - don't get me wrong; I've been perfectly happy for the last month, but Christmas could just as easily have been cancelled without dampening my mood.
I guess one of the things that gets me is that I've spent the last year protesting against corporate greed and tax avoidance, against a financial system that is as much use to our country as a chocolate teapot, and against a way of life that we've fallen into so easily where we obtain what we want because we can afford it without a thought for the people that made it so they could afford to buy what they need. For me, Christmas represents the epitome of this culture.
"But you're just angry at the commercialisation of a religious holiday!" I hear you cry. Well, no. I'm not particularly religious, if at all, but what strikes me about the Nativity story is that Jesus certainly was in no need of gold, frankincense and myrrh before he was out of nappies, if at all. "Worship him like a King!" they cried, lavishing him with all of the stuff that we associate with the lives of those more akin to (*cringe*) the "1%" than the rest of us. It's true that Jesus did indeed attempt to live his life as modestly as possible, but the important thing about Christmas was the premonitions of those around him.
Now that I've justified the theological side for my antipathy with Christmas, we shall mention it no more.
Having spent the festive period in relative solitude - visiting my family on Christmas day and then going home - I can honestly say that I wasn't really that bothered.
Like the next person, I enjoy receiving nice things from time to time, but if you've ever been on Oxford St on Christmas Eve, you'd probably feel like an accessory to murder for receiving, let alone wishing for, gifts bought in what appears to be a frenzy of feeding animals, where the fittest survive and the weakest end up with a high heel through their left eyeball, or worse, empty handed.
And for some strange reason, every news channel was obsessed with Christmas sales figures on Britain's high streets. "Overall, profit is down 10% on last year so far, but we're expecting tomorrow to be the biggest and busiest shopping day ever recorded!" one practically foaming-at-the-mouth pundit informed bleary-eyed Breakfast viewers sometime last week. As if I care.
I'm frankly more concerned about the NHS being privatised, social housing becoming scarcer and more subject to discrimination in its allocation, education becoming more expensive than a reasonably priced car, all of which was caused by exactly the same firms having nightmares about their sales forecast. Arcadia and Philip Green's massive tax dodge alone could've paid for thousands of students to go to university at a reasonable cost, or thousands more homes to be built, or the NHS to be funded properly. Yet for some reason, we're expected to be sitting there on the edges of our seats worrying about how Philip Green might make a bit less than last year - not that it would matter after tax owed is duly unpaid - or that Vodafone are selling fewer phones this Christmas.
Somehow the fact that people do need a place to live but don't need a £130 coat, or that people do need healthcare that won't cause them to remortgage the house, the car, the children and granny, but don't need 25 different pairs of shoes seems to have escaped us. I'm not saying people can't have nice things. I'm saying that our culture should be first and foremost about providing for people's needs before their wants.
As if to add insult to injury to the whole pile of steaming turd that our system is, when a very rich and important-by-heritage man gets ill and goes to a public hospital, he is provided for within 5 hours of his rolling through the doors. While the average waiting time for the same procedure in the same situation (i.e. an emergency) is 5 WEEKS for the rest of us mere plebs. I am of course talking about our royally racist dear old Prince Philip. A man who we have heard all about for the last 5 days. I do wonder if the story would have garnered any attention had it been "90 year old man in Cambridge hospital having main artery unblocked". Somehow I doubt it. But somehow, this barage of utter tripe just kept on coming. "BREAKING: Old man's family visit him in hospital!". Oh, wow.
Can you tell me about something important now? Like the thousands of people being killed in Syria by their own Government? Or how about the Christmas bonuses being paid out to stock traders and market cowboys for royally fucking over the poorest in society? Or perhaps, just perhaps, about the tiny little fact that unemployment will reach nearly 3 million next year?
Clearly, the Prince takes precedent. Because once again, we're so obsessed by our infatuation with anything that takes the reality of life and places it in a little corner of our heads that we'll lap up any old crap we're presented with. "Ooh, it's the Prince! In hospital!". I do hate to remind you, but the royal family are people too. Albeit incredibly rich, taxpayer funded ones.
Much like most of our country's bankers.
I'm not really sure where I was going with this.
I don't think it really matters.
Many of you have said the same things in much more eloquent terms than I.
But I just wanted to say I agree with you.
Let's change it.
*watched TV, browsed ASDA, pulled a christmas cracker, wore a christmas hat, got very drunk.
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