November 2009 - Even More Humbug

You really would think that, with a whole thirty-one days, plus the extra hour, in which to create this month's epic words of wisdom, I'd be just a little more organised and not putting fingers to keyboard, yet again, with just a few hours to spare before publication time.

As things stand, the moment when I have to release this literary masterpiece upon your unsuspecting world is just a tiny bit too close for comfort.

So welcome along, dear viewers, to the hastily scribbled, or whatever the keyboard equivalent of scribble might be, edition of Nick Harvey's Comment for the month of November.

Actually, to digress for just a moment, or three, I suspect there are one or two of you out there, already famous for making occasional mention of my somewhat original colour scheme and choice of font, who think the whole thing is a complete load of scribble every month, let alone just this time round.

I shall, however, avoid all contact, eye or otherwise, with those who prefer their reading to be without bright backgrounds and exciting fonts.  All I can recommend to those individuals is the Daily Mail web site.  After all, it's far less right wing than this place and they use nice little, traditional fonts on a pure white background.

I can't help thinking that I ought not to have put the words 'Daily Mail' and 'pure white background' in the same sentence just there.  Perhaps time to rapidly change the subject, before I get invited to appear on Question Time.

So here I sit, with just hours to go, trying to put together an exciting, enthralling and entertaining epistle, but just beginning to realise that I'm going to be rudely interrupted every few minutes by bloomin' children banging loudly on the front door and shouting "trick or treat".

Why is it that those involved in trick or treat always seem totally incapable of interacting with a bell push?  If only the front drive to Harvey Towers was another mile or so longer; then they wouldn't bother to bother me.

Why, in any case, does it have to be a trick or a treat, I want to know?  It's one of these silly American ideas, isn't it?  But still, why the choice?

Why shouldn't the dear little urchins have the pleasure of both a trick and a treat?  I've got some lovely, fast-acting, extra-powerful, super-strength laxative sweeties here somewhere.  They're in nice, plain wrappers, so they won't know what they are for nearly five minutes.

The next lot to disturb the flow of my typing fingers will get given a large handful of those, I think.  That'll give next door's flower borders a nice treat as well, if the little darlings haven't got quite enough time to get home!

It's all hassle and events at this time of year, isn't it?  First the incredible celebration which is, and can only be, my birthday.  Then, close on its heels, we have this Halloween lark, and as soon as that's over its time for the fireworks.

After the fireworks, we're supposed to have about six weeks for a gentle build up, or is it wind down, to Christmas.  But, it seems, not any more.

I had occasion to visit the centre of town on my birthday, October 25th if you haven't got it in your diary already and need to make a note to send a card next year.  October 25th, as most serious mathematicians will confirm to you, is exactly two months before Christmas Day.

So why the heck are the bloomin' decorations already attached to the lamp posts and strung across the roads a whole two months before the day?  Bah, to the power of twenty-seven and humbug to the power of fifty-three I say!

Looking back at my list on the wall, of previous Comment titles, I note that I was complaining, back in 2001, that Christmas was getting earlier and earlier, but two whole months, this year, is both a record and a disgrace.

Why don't they just give in and put the Christmas decorations up immediately after Easter?  After all, the Easter Eggs will probably be in the shops in the January sales, so we might just as well close up the loop completely, might we not?

This country is rapidly getting to the position where there will soon be no point in the year when we're not in the middle of some stretched-out celebration or other.  And here, to clarify in a totally politically incorrect way, I mean the proper British celebrations and not all these extras that they're forever trying to import from abroad.

Sorry about that.  Got disturbed there for a couple of minutes.  No, it wasn't the front door this time, it was the phone.  Some woman called Jan asking if I'd like to do holiday cover for her column in a daily newspaper.  Apparently, for some strange reason, she might have quite a long holiday coming up.

So, anyway, where were we?  Oh yes, why on earth have the twelve days of Christmas managed to become the twelve weeks of Christmas?  That's the subject, for the few of you left out there who might not have guessed yet, for in-depth analysis under Nick Harvey's, Acme microscope this month.

When I endeavored to carry out some background research into this, not very, fascinating subject, I was told that it was probably due to the recession and the fact that we all need cheering up this year with an abnormally elongated yuletide.

That was the point where I decided that sufficient research had been completed, especially when the answer to the initial question appeared to be such a huge load of elephant excreta.

Why, I can't help wondering, do they think we'll all be cheered up by a much more lengthy Christmas, when one of the key, modern points to Christmas is buying each other very expensive presents, which none of us can afford this year because were all skint due to the soddin' recession?

Perhaps the idea behind starting Christmas in October is something to do with getting us all to send our cards early, I wondered.  Even that thought becomes a tad illogical, though, when you realise that the post probably isn't going to get through till next Easter.

Have you noticed that they always seem to go out on strike in the period before Christmas?  And why are they out on strike again, anyway?  Surely it's for the same reason that they were out on strike the last time?  Didn't anybody bother to tell them that that bloke from the TUC mediated the last time round and got an agreement to settle things?

Slam the lot of them in prison, I say.  Maggie missed a trick by not making striking in such an essential public service illegal.

There, that's upset another viewer or thirty-seven!  Well, surely you guessed from the heading that Nick Harvey was in a right stroppy mood this month?  You didn't?  You must be thick then!  There go another four-hundred-and-eleven!  We'll soon be down to just the true faithful devotees!

There you are, you see, I knew you, and the beige cardigan, would stay till the end regardless.  And it is the end, just about.  I've had enough of all these interruptions, so I'm going to sit right by the front door so I can better dispense my 'interesting' sweeties to the children.

There'll be more, of course, promptly on December the first, so do please join me then.  I'm not sure what I'll have to write about next month though, seeing as we've pretty well done Christmas to death already.  I'm sure I'll think of something though.

By the way, if you happen to read in the press about a nasty spate of tummy trouble in the children of central Wiltshire at the beginning of November, please don't mention a word.  Okay?  Right, I'm off, where's me loo roll?

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