Advent #24 (one more time)

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Christmas

Unless my Uncle’s calendar is way off (which I very much doubt) it’s almost Christmas Day again.

There’s just time though to provide a few updates on, for example, the current situation vis-à-vis our post-Christmas bin collection. Confounding any possible guess I might have made, the Council rescheduled it to the Tuesday BEFORE Christmas (that is to say, yesterday morning).

An update too on The Box of Delights which I finished this morning. Granted, my memory isn’t always the best, and I’ve not seen it since 1986 – but somehow I’d completely forgotten the ending, where it all turns out to be a dream! I HATE that!! The Wizard of Oz, Dallas, and now The Box of Delights. It’s– It’s–  Well, it’s the purple pim!

I have however, finished my current book, and every TV serial I’m currently watching, and our wash pile is under control. (Admittedly that’s only because there’s a load in the washing machine at literally this very moment – but however close to ‘the deadline’ it may be, a win is still a win.)

I didn’t, alas, get time to watch Love Actually this year – and I must confess I was brought up short when I found myself thinking (carelessly? arrogantly?) that I can watch it next year instead. If this year has demonstrated anything, it’s that nothing is guaranteed.

Anyway, as ever thanks to anybody who’s taken time to read my ramblings during December, and also thanks to anybody who’s been kind enough to comment – whether it be questioning my accuracy, debating the merits of the hit parade, or even just being complimentary, it’s always appreciated (especially the compliments!).

I wish you all the best for Christmas, whatever you’re doing and whoever you’re doing it with.

Goodnight, and Merry Christmas.

X

Advent #24 (Again!)

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Christmas, Family, Work

There’s a lad at work who spends all Christmas Eve haggling over what time (aka, how early) we can legitimately finish. Some years he doesn’t even wait until Christmas Eve, and starts negotiations the week before. Which of course saves the rest of us having to worry about it – we just wait for him to leave, then shortly afterwards follow suit.

This year, he booked the whole day off as a holiday instead! (Curses!)

It made for a long and ever-so-slightly uncertain day. And, to cut to the chase, in the end it was me who, at about twenty to four, offered my Good Wishes and my Goodbyes, and went – which was probably a relief to one of our engineers whose plans for Christmas Eve involved leaving at five to go Christmas Shopping. If I’ve helped gain him just one extra hour by legitimising a four o’clock departure then it’ll have been a help. I wouldn’t want to be doing ANY shopping on Christmas Eve (especially not present buying). That’s why I’d already asked my wife and/or daughter to pick up some bread and milk.

On the way home I had a message to say they’d done that… followed by another message asking me to pick up some iced tea and dry shampoo, which they had forgotten!

I popped into brother’s on the way – and saw Mum there too, which was a nice surprise. Nice to see brother too, obviously. (But not a surprise (he lives there).) He’d been given a large Christmas cake, and having plied me with a free sample he also provided me with a tub of it to take home.

After which I took my leave (and my cake (and my daughter’s dry shampoo)) and went, finally, driving home for Christmas.

Advent #24

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Christmas, Work
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I don’t know much about cars. But it’s odd how attuned to the sound of it you get, so that any new noise registers instantly. I always feel on such occasion like Pat Troughton in The Mind Robber: “that noise… that vibration. It’s alien!”  However, since that’s followed almost immediately by the TARDIS exploding into half a dozen pieces, it’s not a very comforting comparison.

Last Thursday there was a new sound from my car, a loud squawk in fact, as if I’d driven over a parrot (I hadn’t – I hadn’t even made one pine for the fjords). A nasty, screechy, graunchy, squawk of a noise.

I was concerned that this would put a serious dent in my Christmas. As a rule I like to be available to drive to friends or family to help deal with any turkey/sweets/Christmas cake they’ve got lying around making the place look untidy. Certainly, there’s usually a lot of driving involved.

One of the advantages of working for an engineering firm (which helps compensate for DISadvantages such as there always being an awful lot of oil to deal with) is that there’s usually somebody who knows something about cars…

…which is why, like a little Christmas miracle, by the end of Monday the car had new brake pads and brake discs and I had a quiet journey home.

It was such a weight off my mind that, although I wouldn’t want to overstate how much I enjoy either pursuit, it was a real pleasure to drive to work on Tuesday.

I’m sure I’ll be similarly pleasured (erm) as I drive to work today – and even more so this afternoon when I drive home again. Because that will be me and work done until January.

To be honest, I’m looking forward to the brake break.

Advent #23

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in 1970s, Childhood, Christmas

Last year, right at the bottom of the wardrobe, I discovered some old Star Wars cards.

I don’t mean baseball cards, or cards from a sticker album. No, these were ‘backing cards’ – originally with a plastic figure attached, the backing card had a photograph of the person (or droid (or creature)) in question and remained intact long after the figure had been removed and played with.

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Well, intactISH. It is a fact that back in the late-seventies the wily marketing teams at Palitoy and Kenner would encourage sales by offering freebies. Buy half a dozen toys and you can send off for another one free. All we excitable ten-year-olds had to do was cut the names out of the backing cards, as proof we’d bought them, and send them off for a freebie. A Boba Fett! A Nein Nunb! A collection of gasmasks and backpacks and guns (oh my)!

In other words, right at the bottom of my wardrobe, I discovered some old Star Wars cards from which the names had been cut out by a Star Wars obsessed schoolkid back in the day. Not much use them cluttering up the wardrobe (I thought) let’s sling them on eBay, somebody might offer a fiver for them.

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Somebody did… Rather more than a fiver in fact. Presumably some of those ten-year-old Star Wars obsessed schoolkids grew up to be fifty-something Star Wars obsessed middle-aged folk with rather too much disposable income on their hands.

So maybe I shouldn’t have been quite so scandalized the other day by the high prices of Rotadraw on eBay – because, clearly, one man’s tat is another man’s overpriced, nostalgia-infused, um, tat. And in fact, selling those cards funded almost our entire Christmas shopping last year.

For once, I feel, the force was with me.

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Advent #22

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Christmas, TV

I don’t know if it’s just me, but in the days before Christmas I like to get my ducks in a row.

These are metaphorical ducks you understand (our actual duck is in the freezer). Things that need tidying up, tidying away, settled or sorted or finished before ‘the big day’. Things like giving the kitchen a good clean, clearing the washing/ironing piles (or at least reducing them so they can’t be seen over the top of the Ali Baba and the flasket respectively). But also, things like finishing up the book I’m reading. Not that I want to suggest all I do is watch TV but, finish any serials I’m watching.

And – and I appreciate this is almost certainly only me, and only this year – and finish Take The High Road.

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I’ve probably never mentioned it before but since 2020 I’ve been watching Take The High Road, available on the STV Player (the ‘Och-iPlayer’ if you like). There are 1517 episodes in total. I have 1 left.

It’s strange when something that’s been a part of daily life comes to an end; but somehow Christmas feels like the right time for it. Although it’s very possible that I only think that because I’m part of ‘the TV generation’ where things often ARE wrapped up neatly and conveniently and happily, all in time for Christmas.

So I’ve finished my book, ready for anything Santa might bring. I’m ready for the boxset I know he IS bringing (I mentioned it back on December 8th, Dr Who Versus Nessie). But, and at the risk of sounding like Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz, I don’t think Santa has any decade-spanning twice-weekly half-hour soap operas in his sack for me.

On that front, it’s the end of the (High) road.

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Advent #21

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Christmas, Moaning

I may have mentioned it before, but I have a spreadsheet for Chistmas.

It’s colour-coded and everything! BLACK is for presents ordered; RED for received; and BLUE for wrapped. Earlier this week, and at the risk of sounding like a football manager, I was looking at a rather daunting 9/21/3 formation. (Sick as a parrot, yes.)

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That was until yesterday, when I spent a long time in the bedroom turning things blue (as it were). Now EVERYTHING is wrapped apart from eight blacks which are, let’s be honest, cutting it a bit fine.

I heartily approve of what seems to be ‘a thing’ with some online deliveries, that they come with a pack of Love Hearts. In the interests of fairness I’ve left one in situ (so if anybody shakes the box to determine what the present is, it makes a misleading rattle) and I’ve eaten the other. (WOW, smiley face, WINNER, and two ALL MINEs, in case you’re in the least bit interested.)

On the other hand, although I didn’t at this late stage in my ramblings expect to start moaning (he lied) I don’t approve of how many ‘Made in China’ labels I saw while wrapping. Can’t we even knock up a pair of slippers or a decent card game anymore?! (Oh! Spoiler warning – somebody’s getting slippers for Christmas)

That’s not an ‘isolationist’ rant, I know UK businesses sell into China, so inevitably the reverse must happen. But I don’t like, and this seems to be eBay in particular, when products aren’t advertised as such, it becomes apparent only when they arrive. I certainly have much more sympathy now for Grandpa saying “buy British” than I ever did at the time.

So, that’s ever-so-slightly made me see red – but I’ll try not to get blue about it! 

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Advent #20

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Christmas, Moaning

When I got into the office Thursday morning I discovered my colleague had switched our ‘background radio’ from Radio 2 to Radio 1. (I’d only taken a couple of days off, you see how quickly anarchy can descend!)

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Friday afternoon I realised they were doing the Top 40 Countdown, and my heart sank at the prospect of a never-ending parade of the sort of bass-y, incomprehensible, occasionally sweary, modern music that leaves me cold.

It wasn’t like that at all, thank goodness. This being the chart of the week before Christmas, it was filled (naturally enough) with Christmas songs. Familiar songs – I nearly said ‘proper songs’ then – like Wonderful Christmastime, I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day, Driving Home for Christmas. Etc. Etc.

The big news of the day (at least according to the DJ, who mentioned it what felt like every ten minutes) was the race for number one, the main contenders being Wham (of course), Mariah Carey (of course) and upstart newcomer Kylie. (Spoiler warning! – Kylie ended up on top in that three-way (and yes, that sentence did sound better in my head)).

It occurred to me then, listening to Brenda Lee Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree (1958) and Nat King Cole doing The Christmas Song (1946!) that the modern chart doesn’t rely on there being a physical record on sale. Now that there’s downloading and streaming, and all that other stuff I don’t understand, ANY song can get to the top of the charts.

Given which, surely, we should all agree in eleven-and-a-half month’s time to put all our energies into getting a proper Christmas song into the number one spot.

Sorry Kylie, but in 2026 I want to be having a Wombling Merry Christmas. The campaign starts here!

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Advent #19

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in 1970s, Childhood, Christmas
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One of my very earliest Christmasses, I got a Lego fire station and my brother the Lego space launch site. It was, as I occasionally tell people and watch their eyes either boggle at how I can be SO old or glaze over at how I can be SO boring (sometimes both) – it was so long ago that the Lego sets didn’t even come with Lego people. The fire station had three fire engines of increasing sizes (or decreasing, depends which way you arranged them) and the space command centre had an Apollo-style rocket and a lunar buggy. But no firemen, and no spacemen. (Or women, or women).

The first Lego people I ever saw was a few years later when I got the Lego hospital for my birthday. This was a real leap into the future (I may have first heard it being explained by Michael Rod on Tomorrow’s World but don’t quote me on that) because it included Lego people. Lego doctors and nurses and porters and patients.

Well, sort of. These weren’t the jolly, articulated, smiley figures of today – these were immobile, non-prehensile, featureless blocks, occasionally given just a hint of personality by wearing a hat. But for all their simplicity, I was very excited by this wild new development.

Ironically, other than a Lego boat from my Aunt (which brilliantly came with a weight on the bottom so it would actually float in the bath) I don’t recall getting many Lego kits after that. Nowadays I get the feeling it’s more acceptable for grown-ups to enjoy Lego, but unfortunately that’s a revolution that has come too late for me.

Still, I always enjoy recalling how many hours of fun we had with it back in the day; and remembering the (Lego) people we used to be. 

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Advent #18

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Christmas, Family, Money, Pets

A bit like the mid-season two-parters so beloved of noughties Doctor Who showrunners, and even though I didn’t even bother with a cliffhanger yesterday, I’m back at the Christmas Market.

Not literally. (To end up at a Christmas Market once can be considered a misfortune (and so on).) But after my moaning yesterday, it would be unfair not to point out that some people DO enjoy going. And I’m married to one of them.

At the risk of sounding a little Scrooge-y, I ALWAYS start from the assumption that I’m not going to spend anything. Whereas conversely, and despite having been married for quite some time now, my wife always goes in with the assumption that I AM going to.

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In terms of Christmas Markets, I’m afraid Mrs Curnow is easy prey to a ‘free sample’ – as in a tiny little paper cup of this gin or that rum. Every time we go, sooner or later (and usually sooner) there will be a sample which she can’t resist. (This is more or less the moment at which I realise how different our assumptions about spending money are.)

Dare I say, even our puppy was less-easily swayed. Almost the first stall we came to was a ‘free sample’ of some fancy, highfalutin dog food – which Daisy was having none of. Considering that she eats cardboard, shoes and floor tiles on a daily basis (and considering she turned down the free sample but shortly thereafter was keen to smell another dog’s butt) it’s hard not to take that as a damning critique of the dog food.

So thankfully, I can report I didn’t spend any money.

Well, not on dog food anyway. Mrs Curnow found a ‘free sample’ that she somehow convinced me she couldn’t live without. How does she do that??

Advent #17

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Christmas, Moaning, Money

I don’t really enjoy Christmas Markets.

I accept that’s probably my fault rather than theirs, I don’t much like shopping in general (and I’m certainly a very inept browser). But setting that aside, I have concluded that the best way to go to a Christmas Market is EITHER when you’ve already done all your Christmas shopping so you don’t have any pressure to buy anything; OR when you’re sufficiently well-off that you can, and in the words of Jessie J (ooh, look at me getting down wid da kidz) forget about the price tag.

We went to Exeter’s Christmas Market yesterday and as always there was lots of great-looking stuff. Putting aside my inner Ebenezer, I have nothing but admiration for the people who make jewellery or clothes or decorations or… well, or whatever it is they make; and then turn up day after day in all weathers to sell it.

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But we all baulked, for example, at a range of gorgeous multi-coloured fleece coats which were priced at over £200 – at every turn, dare I say, there were prices which I think many, if not most, people would have to think twice about. Even the food stalls, which looked to be doing the roaringest trade of anybody there, seemed expensive. But given that, as Napoleon said, an army of shoppers marches on its stomach, I guess they had a kind of ‘captive market’ thing going on.

I moan about going every year but despite that, I wouldn’t want the place to close down. Still, in these times where most people seem to be more and more battered by the cost of living, I worry. It would be an awful shame if all those creative sewers and silversmiths and artists ended up pricing themselves out of the (Christmas) Market.