Expect a rough winter and a dour Christmas this year. The signs were evident everywhere yesterday. Asda even opened Santa's Grottos in seventeen of their stores across the country. It's not a first. Catterick Racecourse held their Christmas racemeeting in August some years ago. I passed through Cebu airport concourse in the Philippines once in August and there were masses of airport staff dressed in skimpy scarlet or green mini dresses approaching all passengers and saying:
'Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas ............... in advance.'
There were other signs I saw whilst travelling around that winter is just round the corner.
The pheasants chicks are just getting to the size where you notice their crass stupidity. They waddle aimlessly up the roads in large packs, ignoring any car which comes perilously close to them.
The 'silly season', traditionally named in the newspaper industry to describe the summer months when Parliament is in recess, everyone is on holiday and when news was light, I noticed was gasping its dying breath. The newspaper hoardings showed one last useless headline of some inanely boring and non-descript story.
But now we are getting somewhere. The media have turned their attention to the winter weather. It is only August and there are talks of the fear of floods, a long, icy and snowy winter and the weathermen on the radio are gleefully saying:
'Turning colder.'
So the shops are just jumping on the bandwagon. Christmas, I feel is similar to the Olympics. A terrible worry beforehand, fantastic on the actual day which soon reverts to a horrible hangover, the day after and worry for the next few months as to how you are going to pay for it.
Welcome to Britain. Would you want it any other way?
I thought not.
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