Another Lousy Christmas – Grahame May (25th)

Last year both the wife and I went down with Covid, despite having had all the jabs, and this year it was a flu like infection with plenty of coughs and sneezes . Fortunately we were able to cancel what few engagements we had and suffered in solitude with only Bobby, our good old collie, as company . He was completely unfazed by it all as long as he got his daily walk or time in the garden to play with his toys. We both found the television pretty appalling with all the usual old chestnuts being wheeled out day after day. There were three different Christmas Carol films, one with a British Scrooge and two with American ones and there was also a great deal of censorship on nearly every other old film. Programmes like Steptoe and Son and Rising Damp came of worst with constant reminders that the language was that of the time and then anything close to a swear word was bleeped out. All this had us both shaking our heads in disbelief. One programme even had a posse of minor celebrities telling us how funny Tommy Cooper had been and then tried to explain why and how some of his tricks worked and some did not!! I think the same formula was used last year on Morecombe and Wise ??? We tried some more modern plays or films but the sound quality was so bad we could hardly understand a word and gave up. We found some old jigsaw puzzles but there were pieces missing so we called it a day and read a book or two.  We had a Xmas Dinner of sorts and a Boxing Day lash up and that was it for another year.

It took about another week before sanity returned but the wife still had one of those racking coughs which you cannot escape from unless you have a good excuse to go shopping. So welcome to 2025AD and a Labour Government that is totally inept and clueless. Of course the ideal thing to do would be for us to visit the wife’s relations in Spain and then come back among a boatload of immigrants. Then we could live in luxury in a 5 star centrally heated hotel with three meals a day, dental and health care as well as some pocket money. Only kidding, but it does make you wonder who are the mugs in this once proud British Isles.