Year-round secret Santa
WHENEVER I hear RoyWood from Wizzard singing I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day, I want to ask him: “Really, mate? Are you sure?” I don’t think Roy has really thought it through.
Christmas every day would mean shops, offices and factories were permanently shut, public transport would be non-existent and there’d be no-one bringing packages or post.
It would be like lockdown all over again, only this time without having Boris to cheer us up.
Would Roy really want to have that on his conscience? That said, there are certain businesses which do seem to have a permanent festive mindset.
“You’ve got to actually love Christmas to work here,” confirms a lady at a Christmas jumper manufacturer in Leicester, one of the places featured tonight on SECRETS OFTHE CHRISTMAS FACTORY (Channel 5, 6pm). “It’s like Christmas all year round!” a worker says of her company’s gingerbread factory in Shropshire, also visited on this show.
“It’s nearly like Christmas every day here!” cries a Christmas tree grower in Wetherby.
“I LOVE Christmas!” exclaims a lady in Cwmbran, as she proudly shows us around her firm’s vast tinsel factory. “And the magic of that time of year is felt…” (Hang on, let me guess.All year round, by any chance?) “...all year round!”
This show, of course, isn’t a million miles away from INSIDE THE FACTORY, a festive episode of which, coincidentally, is repeated tonight (BBC2, 9pm). But while the BBC’s programme likes to focus on one factory per episode, this Channel 5 thing visits six.The other two are a greetings card maker and a Brussels sprout producer.
Giving each business less airtime is probably wise, because, no disrespect, people do bang on a bit, particularly when it comes to throwing statistics at us.
The Christmas jumper factory, boasts its boss, makes up to 22,000 items a year.The gingerbread people use colours of icing.The Brussels sprouts are processed at 12 tons an hour.And so on.That said, there are bits that do make you sit up and take notice.The tinsel lady, for instance, tells us they make enough each year “to wrap around the moon twice…” (I intend to to try), “...with four million metres left over”.
And the Christmas tree people, we learn, have taken to trimming their trees on each side, making them extra-narrow so they don’t block people’s view of their widescreen TVs.
“Everyone wants an 8ft tree that’s 1ft wide,” says the boss.Yep, sounds the right dimensions to me.
And if Gary Lineker suddenly flashes up on my screen, I can quickly tip the tree on its side.
That, and press mute, obviously.