I can’t wrap up Christmas plans
IT TOOK me a while to see the difference between the old BBC logo and the new one. And if I was shown them separately I’d be hard pressed to say which was which. Heaven knows how much money was spent on this pointless tinkering.
What I find hard to believe is that viewers genuinely complained that the old one was “dated”.who sits around at home moaning about logos looking old hat when there are sensible things to moan about such as why you can never hear the dialogue in dramas? And while we’re on the subject of legitimate gripes, here’s mine. If a character receives a text on the phone, one of us has to spring up and peer at the screen to read it before it disappears. And we never get there in time. Maddening.
THE LYRICS: 1956Tothe Present is the two-volume work written by Paul Muldoon in which Sir Paul Mccartney gives us the nearest thing to an autobiography – an A to Z of the inspiration behind 154 of his best-known songs. Looking through some of them it’s astonishing how many of us will know all the lyrics off by heart. Yesterday...penny Lane...etc.
The same can be said of the work of the songwriter Leslie Bricusse, right, who died last week at the age of 90. I had no idea he’d written My Old Man’s A Dustman for Lonnie Donegan back in 1960, which is the ultimate ear worm.
Of course he is better known for musicals such as Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory and Doctor Doolittle. The latter’s Talk To The Animals won an Oscar for best original song in
1968. His songs such aswhat Kind Of Fool Am I? (co-written with Anthony Newley for the musical Stoptheworld I Want To Get Off) are much-loved standards. And then there are the themes for Goldfinger and You Only Live Twice. An amazing output.
If God has any sense there’s a section in Heaven reserved for great songwriters.who contributes more to human happiness?
I HAVE zero interest in Halloween, not least because last year the trick or treaters threw eggs at our front door when we didn’t rush out to give the little beasts sweets or money. There’s also been a kerfuffle about the word “spooky” which gets bandied about at this time of year.
The word has become another no-no in the culture wars with the discovery that it was used to describe black US army pilots during the Second World War. The National Theatre Scotland was said to have banned this apparent racist slur saying, “No one has complained about it but there were worries they could in the future.” Now they say they didn’t ban it. Spooky!
Of course one should be fastidious about the words one uses. Nothing divides Britain from America more than our shared language. If you “knock up” someone in Newyork you get them out of bed. If you do it in London you get them pregnant.
Spooky may have racist overtones in America. But it doesn’t here.
HAVE you had the Christmas conversation yet? You know the one.whose house, which days, what would the grandchildren like from Santa? Feeling it was about time someone in the family said something, I sent out a missive.the response has been – to say the least – disappointing. One son said that there was bound to be another lockdown so they weren’t really making any plans.assuming there isn’t a new petrol shortage, he (ever the optimist) said, we could always go to his family for the day though he wasn’t sure what the chances were of getting hold of a turkey.
The others weren’t much more helpful. Younger son was pretty sure he’d be working like Bob Cratchit in A Christmas Carol, wearing fingerless gloves at his work-station. Third child has to pay for root canal treatment and gave me the usual earache about how awful everything is for millennials, so she can’t afford Christmas.
I can’t say I’m bothered about the threatened shortage of Christmas swag due to the supply chain problems. All the small children I know seem to live in homes which are basically toy repositories so it will do them all good to have nothing more to look forward to than the orange in the toe of their Christmas stockings (assuming we can still get oranges).
I’ve always admired how red-cheeked children in Victorian novels are satisfied with very little and remember being intrigued by the presents in Susan Coolidge’s 1872 novel What Katy Did. Someone called Elsie gets “a pen-wiper, with a grey flannel kitten on it”. Pen wiper? That wouldn’t go down at all well today.
Meanwhile I’ve been looking up the must-have Christmas gadgets which we won’t be able to get either because they’re all in a container in Felixstowe or Shanghai. There’s something called a “bed scrunchie” which holds your bottom sheet in place. “Say goodbye to wrinkly sheets forever” says the advert. Not that I’ve ever said hello to wrinkly sheets because I don’t talk to the bed.
There’s another thing that enables you to “protect yourself from harmful phone radiation” and one that kills all the germs on your toothbrush.
It’s a funny society where the must-have presents are about risk avoidance rather than pleasure. Me, I like unwrapping silk and scent and have never given a thought to germs on my toothbrush.
So as far as I can see, Christmas is on hold, threatening to be as much of a non-event as last year’s – especially when Plan B kicks in.and in any case, we’re all saving up now for heat pumps.
■
IT’S SAID that the mini skirt is making a comeback and later this month a documentary about its pioneer Mary Quant – called Quant – is to be released. Of course mini skirts have never really gone away since the 1960s but right now I’m getting tired of all the flowery, flouncy mid-calf prairie dresses which, for a while, seemed so desirable.they’re starting to look frumpy and “old lady” while a few short months ago they seemed feminine and elegant.
Fashion is a funny thing. It needles away at you.the moment that you think you have found a style which will be your “forever look”, that little voice starts to drip the most delicious poison in your ear.you could take this as proof that we are all pathetic fashion victims and slaves to consumerism. But only if you were a total misery guts.
Anyway my pins aren’t too bad and I have a drawerful of black opaque tights just waiting to be worn... under a nice new knee-revealing skirt.