Let’s cancel Twixmas – oh, and January while we’re at it
Here’s a question for you. Be warned, though: it’s a real brain-teaser. Without turning to the front page to check the top left-hand corner: what day is it today? The answer, in case you’re still stumped, is Saturday. Don’t feel bad if you didn’t get it. I had to look at the calendar myself.
I can’t bear this time of year. Christmas Day is great. But the days between it and New Year’s Eve, provided you’re still off work, are rotten. They have none of the joy and fun of a normal holiday. Instead, they curdle into one long, listless limbo, where time slows to a crawl, you live entirely off cold sausages and you’ve got no idea what day to put the bins out. And even if you’ve got a letter from the council saying it’s Friday, it doesn’t help, because you’ve got no idea what day Friday is.
One dark and nameless morning you finally summon the energy to shuffle outside. You open the door to the sullen cold, blinking blearily, like a small mammal woken from hibernation a month too early. You’ve decided to go shopping. Not that you need or want to buy anything. You’re just desperate for something to do.
In the window of Boots you catch a glimpse of your reflection. Pale, puffy and pudgy, your face looks like a death mask made of bread sauce. You feel tired. Which is odd, given that you’ve barely moved a muscle in a week.
I should love it. I spend most of the year dying for time off, especially now that general elections are held roughly every six weeks. But, for me, as for many, time off isn’t really time off because I’ve got a small child, and when you’ve got a small child you work harder on holiday than you do at the office. All that feeding and entertaining you normally palm off on to a nursery or nanny, you now have to do yourself. By Boxing Day lunchtime you long to get back to the office, so you can relax.
Personally, I vote that we scrap the whole thing. Tear Boxing Day to New Year’s Eve right out of the calendar. In fact, tear New Year’s Eve out too – no one actually enjoys New Year’s Eve. Oh, and January. January is just miserable.
The original Roman calendar had only 10 months and began in March. We could learn a lot from that.
Over Christmas Bridget Jones’s Diary was shown on TV again. Most of it was still funny, but at times it felt a little awkward. The film contains certain scenes I’m not sure you could write these days. And not just the ones full of people smoking in restaurants.
The film positively crawls with pervy men. At Bridget’s mother’s parties there’s “Uncle” Geoffrey (who’s “not really my uncle,” says Bridget in voiceover: just “someone who insists I call him ‘Uncle’ while he stares at my breasts and ask why I’m not married yet”). At Bridget’s work there’s Mr Fitzherbert (“who,” says Bridget, again in voiceover, “stares freely at my breasts with no idea who I am or what I do”). Then there’s Richard Finch, Bridget’s prospective new boss at a breakfast TV show called Sit Up Britain. During her interview, Bridget confesses that she wants to leave her current job because she slept with her boss. Finch isn’t taken back by this – far from it. “At Sit Up Britain, no one ever gets sacked for shagging the boss!” he leers.
You could certainly still write scenes like those today, because the men in question are portrayed unambiguously as creepy and repellent. The scenes you probably couldn’t write today are the ones that introduce us to Daniel Cleaver. Daniel, played by Hugh Grant, is Bridget’s boss. He uses company email to tease Bridget about the shortness of her skirt. In reply, Bridget ( jokingly) accuses him of sexual harassment. Daniel affects to apologise, then adds: “Like your t--- in that top.” A little later, in the office lift, in the presence of colleagues, he places his hand on Bridget’s bottom.
The difference between Daniel and “Uncle” Geoffrey et al is that Daniel is attractive, and Bridget welcomes his advances. Of course, the fact that she welcomes them means it isn’t harassment. But, post-weinstein, I can’t imagine anyone would dare write a scene that might be taken to suggest it’s all right to approach a female employee the way Daniel does – provided that, like him, you’re swaggeringly self-confident and superficially charming. Sure, it’s wrong when Mr Fitzherbert ogles a female colleague, but he’s old and ugly. Daniel’s young and cool, so it’s fine.
I don’t mean any criticism of the Bridget Jones’s Diary scriptwriters (Helen Fielding, Richard Curtis and Andrew Davies). That surely wasn’t their intended message. It’s just a reflection of how times change. The film came out in 2001. It suddenly feels like a very long time ago.
I’ve never been a member of a political party. Or even a supporter of one. I’m a floating voter. This used to be a reasonably stressfree position. These days, however, it’s tough. Put it like this.
Whenever I read an article about the current state of the Conservative Party it makes me want to vote Labour, just to punish them.
But then I read an article about the current state of the Labour Party and it makes me want to vote Conservative, just to punish them.
Then, however, I read another article about the current state of the Conservative Party, and it makes me want to vote Labour again. Until, of course, I read another article about the current state of the Labour Party. And so on.
The party that wins the next election, I suspect, will be the one that simply shuts up and focuses on keeping itself out of the news altogether.
In practice this should be slightly easier for the Opposition than it is for the Government. Labour should send Jeremy Corbyn, John Mcdonnell and all their activists to New Zealand for a nice long holiday. And tell them not to come back till the next election’s won.