I got Dawn of the Dumb, Charlie Brooker’s collection of Guardian columns for Christmas, and I’ve been chuckling my way through it since the big day. This despite the fact that I’m clearly the sort of person Mr Brooker would cheerfully toss under a speeding car - I’m middle class, I sometimes buy organic food, I have not one but three children - called Sebastian, Tiger-Lily and Polenta. I even quite like Jamie Oliver, for chrissakes. But I chuckle on, even snickering at columns like ‘Kids are such c*nts’ and ‘Kids and how to murder the c*nting selfish b*st*rds’. Okay, I may have made those titles up, but you get the idea. He is terribly funny, filthy rude and easily the best TV critic since Clive James made The Observer worth reading thirty years ago.
Tonight I finished reading the boys another chapter of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and settled down to finish reading myself another Charlie Brooker column. It was a good one, attacking mystics. Imagine my surprise when the first paragraph I read mentioned Narnia. And the piece immediately following was published on my 40th birthday. I was half expecting the one after that to address me by name and tell me which famous British actress I have a crush on. Which is all very confusing - Charlie Brooker’s coruscating attack on psychics makes me think that something spooky and other-worldly is going on…
(The index is a good read too. For example: ‘nasty grief-raping sucksacks, see psychics’. Or ‘complete and utter c*nts, see psychics’. And then there’s ‘Walliams, David, enjoying sexual intercourse with a potato’.)
Christmas shopping on Covent Garden last week, I got heckled by a street performer.
Yes, I got heckled.
Covent Garden was heaving, you could hardly move. This street entertainer had an audience of, ooh I think maybe two people. I was in a hurry, could see that he was doing his act, so I walked behind him rather than walking between him and his audience. As I walked off he turned to me and yelled “Oi mate, I don’t walk through your bedroom while you’re performing.”
Now I have a couple of problems with this. First, obviously, is the fact that I walked behind him, though it’s possible I did walk between his back and some of his stuff, thus breaking the magic, sacred bond between Perfomer and Scrappy Suitcase. But mainly the thing that annoyed me was drawing a parallel between my own bedroom and the sodding pavement in one of the world’s busiest shopping areas at the busiest time of year.
Or maybe he was just so pleased with the hilarity of his line, he couldn’t resist using it. Even if it didn’t really fit the situation.
I was going to write a small rant about Christmas tree lights (why wired in series, not parallel, etc) but they are almost all working now. A mere 7 bulbs replaced in one set, a mere hour and a half spent with a multimeter and some colourful language.
But, no, this is about toys. Long-time readers may remember my previous discussion about not liking Playmobil because of the amount of time it took me to build the pirate ship, compared with the small amount of time it took my children to demolish it.
This year Henry got the big Playmobil Subbuteo-style football game. Only took me about 15 minutes to put it together, using the usual nicely drawn graphic instructions. But the instructions on how to actually play the game - they’re in German.
Made me laugh almost as much as Mrs Blogmywiki insisting that Eau de Vie de Poire William was a light aperitif and turning the colour of Withnail drinking lighter fuel when she swigged back a capful.
Is it just me, or is the animated film Polar Express a nasty piece of work?
I watched it at the in-laws last year on DVD - I may have had too much goose and port but it made me feel sick. And it’s now showing in 3D at the IMAX cinema at Waterloo - that’s a great way to screw up your kids’ Christmas.
There’s just something sinister about it, and not sinister in a good way. Just bleak and scary with no shred of comfort. And not great to look at, either. Give me any old adaptation of A Christmas Carol, give me that cartoon of Oscar Wilde’s Happy Prince, but above all give me The Amazing Mr Blunden.
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