That's right reader, in these artcles in which we all contribute, you get to read me first. You can read my piece, then simply ignore the drivel below. In particular, I suggest you steer clear of anything Amanda has written as she is a stupid cow. You should also know by now that Sir Michael Wiggy is a senile old fool whose pointless ramblings are best ignored.
I am outraged at how shit retail is these days. They keep no stock, and what little they do have is of spectacularly poor quality. The staff are rude, ignorant and unhelpful. They then have the cheek to moan in the national newspapers about how hard they have been hit by whatever economic trend they currently choose to blame for their own shitness.
They get lazier and more insulting every year. The art of high street retail is to trick the ignorant public into coming in and parting with their money, while providing as little in return as possible. Since this has been pared down so much in recent years, just taking people's money is no longer enough and shops are starting to up the ante by insulting their customers as well. One day their slogan is going to be "Come in and give us your money, you cunts." In fact, the apple store in Regent Street is very close to this now. Instead of a receipt, you get a piece of paper with the words "We think our customers are cunts, but they love us anyway" in large friendly letters. Also their recent player, the "shuffle", was originally designed specifically to go with the slogan "you can shove it up your arse". The slogan was dropped at the last minute, but the player kept its suppository shape.
I think we should fight back. Don't go in a shop whose Christmas displays go up before December 15th. Then, of course, some people take more direct action. There's a guy I know who is a self-styled "Retail Guerrilla", a potent combination of consumer champion, one-man retail ombudsman and unemployed man with borderline mental health problems. He targets cynical seasonal campaigns with direct action, such as smashing the entire stock of Easter Eggs in Tesco by filling a trolley with them, wheeling it to the beans aisle and then throwing tin after tin on top of them, before abandoning it in the pet food section.
To be honest, it doesn't make much difference to me. I always do the same thing for my Christmas shop. I go to the pub at lunchtime on Christmas Eve, wearing a santa hat. I'll usually have a few drinks and see if I can get a christmas snog from the various middle-aged divorcees that are drinking on their own in there, before they get too pissed and their make-up starts running. This starts to happen about four o'clock, so I pop down the fifty pence and a pound shop and just buy a whole load of stuff, more or less at random. They've got pretty much everything there.
I dump all this crap off at my flat and head back to the pub. The great thing is that there's always a late bar and if I realise I have forgotten anything, I can get it from the petrol station on the way home. When I get in, I drink the cans I brought back from the pub while I wrap the presents. Of course, by now, it is technically Christmas Day, so if I have any booze in the house, I might stay up right through the night.
In Blair's Britain, there are no neutral periods like there were under the cautious John Major. In Major's Britain there long periods of boring, ordinary days. Days in which Christmas or Easter seemed miles away. Grey and dull months that dragged by. All that has changed now because Tony Blair has sorted it so that we have Summer and then just roll straight into Christmas. Better still, bars will be open 24 hours a day. Life in Britain is now one long party, a party that never ends.
Merry Christmas voters, from your glorious leader. Enjoy the party and let me worry about the boring old politics. That's the message that is on all media from now until the next Summer begins.
The best thing about Christmas is when middle-class people who run their own deli, and who invariably know nothing about running a shop, decide to try and boost their meagre takings with an ill-judged attempt at free booze, which is usually mulled wine. For the first time in the year since they took it over, there's more than one customer in the shop, but unsurprisingly none of them decide to pay five quid for a small packet of oat cakes or six quid for peanut butter. Six months later they're gone, blaming everyone but themselves for the abject failure of their shit shop. However, that one day they have provided a valuable bit of pleasure to all the local tramps, something they have never before done and never will again do. The irony is that they won't realise and will be both angry and resentful. Gilly and I were there all day, and even though we were almost comatose by the time they threw us out, I can remember their anger. If anything it got worse when I offered, as a token gesture of good will, to buy an overpriced sugar mouse.
All my present shopping is booze, as this is what all of my friends and family appreciate most. This means that I can, and indeed to be honest, have to, do all my shopping at the very last minute. If I started my shopping in September, I would probably have drunk the three or four dozen bottles of booze by the middle of ..... the same afternoon.
We all have a different idea of when Christmas should start. For me it's roughly December 10th. Tesco and Sainsbury's have shamelessly tried to play the philanthropy card by saying that they only want to help people spread the cost of Christmas. Hang on - if you can't afford crackers, how is buying them in September going to help you. Are people stupid enough that they would rather save up and make do over months and months just so that on Christmas day they can have a really shit bit of tin foil containing one of the worst jokes ever, a paper "hat" and a small plastic choking hazard?
What must the Chinese think when we order all this badly made shit? The cracker factory phone up the badly moulded plastic company and they can't believe their luck. "That's right Mrs Yang, that's 300,000 little plastic false fingernails, 100,000 barely recognisable cowboys on horseback and 750,000 really rubbish false moustaches with nose clips that make your eyes water. Yes you did hear me correctly. No, no, don't worry about the quality, it's all going to Britain.".
In September 1973, I was touring the UK with my seminal proto-punk/glam band, The Toilets, supporting Slade. One afternoon, while the two bands were relaxing backstage, I said to Noddy Holder: "Hey Nod, I've got a great idea for a Christmas single". He didn't seem all that interested at first, but as I explained my vision of a long lasting, perennial seasonal anthem which would keep me in royalties for decades, I noticed little Dave Hill listening intently. Now I never liked Dave that much. When you've been in the Rock'n'Roll business as long as I have, you learn never to trust shifty looking little fuckers with their hair cut into a ridiculous peak. He also used to wear platforms, I mean man, we all did, but for us it was for the look, while for Dave, it was as if he was trying to conceal something: his lack of height. You see? Crafty little fucker and not to be trusted.
I'd worked out a couple of parts, just a few chords mind, nothing spectacular. In those days we were doing a lot of junk and it had to be something we could all play when we were on stage. I ran through it for Noddy, to get his opinion, like, on my acoustic. I forgot all about it for a couple of weeks, and the next thing I know, I'm switching on Top of the bleeding Pops, and there they are. Cunts. Still, that's rock 'n' roll, folks.