Stuff and Nonsense

I watched ‘Shrek the Halls’ tonight with the family. I think the story was based on my life and I’m not seeing a penny in royalties. Can I sue?

Lets examine the evidence..

First, there is more than a passing physical resemblence between Shrek and I. Anyone who knows me could attest.

Like me, Shrek has three offspring who confuse him with some invincible young person with boundless energy who is impervious to pain inflicted while ‘play’ fighting.

Like me, Shrek has a best friend who is annoyingly optimistic and has to be told quite clearly when his visit is over and it’s time to go home. Sorry Si – you know it’s true.

Like me, Shrek lives in a house that has too much stuff in for its size.

Like mine, Shrek’s house is in a swamp. Not literally of course. But I think of the swamp as a metaphor for living on a modern estate – despite this one being very pleasant by many measures.

There’s another similarity. Shrek likes his swamp too.

Shrek knows the only bastion of peace is the toilet. An Englishman’s home may be his castle but a Dad’s sanctuary is the loo.

Like me, Shrek has an appalling diet. This is because we both know that anything that lengthens the time we can plausibly remain in the throne room is a good thing.

When Shrek shouts, the family listen… then ignore him anyway.

Princess Fiona was a babe before he met her and now she’s an ogress. This is a statement of fact and unlike all the others above bears no resemblance to my life whatsoever.

Shrek is not at all scared of his wife.

Well, it feels like it anyway. There was a certain nip in the air tonight. A Yuletide chill you might call it. A definite yet undefinable feeling that Christmas is upon us. On my way into the DIY store the scene was as boring and depressing as any other night when leaving the office promptly at 5. An endless stream of cars stretched back from the red light, blocking the entrance to the store car park, blocking others turning right, churning out billowing clouds of noxious fumes from recently started engines. Altogether more than a little grim.

On exit from the store though, what a difference! The endless stream of lights, white, yellow, red, amber, the occasional green, some blue from those daft windscreen neon affairs, all of them were now as fairy lights; twinkling not in the sluggish monotony of the winter commute but in brightly buzzing anticipation of the imminent arrival of a fat jolly bloke in a red suit. Of course anthropomorphising car lights is a sure sign that it was my mood that altered rather than the light’s but briefly, that’s what crossed my mind, and now it’s out there for the psychoanalysts among you to make of it what you will.  There I go again making the assumption that more than one other person actually reads this stuff.

I can only imagine that briefly I was whisked backed to the happier Christmases of childhood. I don’t mean that my Christmases as an adult are bad, or have been. On the contrary, since my good fortune in marriage and parenthood, Christmas has taken on slighter brighter hue with each passing year. I simply mean that not all the childhood Christmases filled me with joyful optimism. That’s a different and lengthier post altogether though.

I am, I’m sorry to say and for no reason that I can articulate though probably related to the comments above, a bit of a miserable sod when it comes to Christmas. The whole affair just gets me a little bit down. I’m happy Dad of course with the kids; “It’s for the kids really isn’t it?” as they say and there is much fun to be had watching and helping them enjoy it but frankly no more fun for me than is to be had doing any jigsaw, playing any word game, drawing any picture with the kids throughout the year. I’m very fortunate to work near to home and to work flexible hours (at least flexible attendance at the office. The actual hours worked are still too much by many people’s standards but early mornings and adult evenings are forgone in preference to being home at a time when the Kids are awake) so I get to be an active and participatory dad. Perhaps this is why I don’t value the holidays as much as one might. I get to spend time with the children 7 nights a week and weekends with very few exceptions throughout the year. Were I unable to do that I suppose I might hold the Christmas break to be a little more precious than is my wont.

As it is, there will be repeats on telly, the weather will be foul, it won’t snow, I’ll eat too much, put on a stone in weight in 2 weeks that will take me all year to lose if I lose it all, friends and family will turn up or send such copious amounts of chocolate and biscuits that we won’t make a dent in them until Easter when it will pile up again. And of course the house will be consumed by an avalanche of presents from near and far. It’s all very very silly.

On the matter of presents, I should like to offer this thought, the razor sharp logic of which, I claim for myself (if it’s someone elses I can’t remember when I heard it. If you know different, speak up).

I have all I need. What I do not need but really want I can buy myself. If I can’t buy it because I can’t afford it then you can’t afford it either or, if you can afford it, you don’t feel the need to buy me presents anyway. The logical implication of these facts should be obvious. Any present you buy for me can only possibly be something I don’t need or something I don’t want. Thanks for the thought but save your money. Pay it off your mortgage (every pound counts) or another debt or give it to ChildLine or Children In Need or some other good cause close to your heart. Buy yourself a premium bond, you might win big and give a bit more to your chosen charity. There are an infinite amount of better things you can do with every “present pound” than spend it on wrapping paper destined for the recycling along with whatever you were thinking of putting in it.

Oh, and please don’t tell me that my misery is the result of the heathen-fuelled greedy, coveting, materialistic existence of the developed world and that Christmas is really about religion. No. Religion just spoils the “party”. It used to be about religion when the human race was young and stupid. It used to be about religion when early Christians adopted a pagan festival so they might more easily convert the feeble minded masses from one delusion to another but these days it’s just something to mark the end of the year at its most miserable zenith (in the northern hemisphere at least).

I feel buoyed this morning by the news that Obama is to become president. Strange. I’m not sure why I am so interested. Perhaps it’s just age, perhaps parenthood but I do detect within myself a modest amount of anticipation – eagerness even – about what this man may achieve.

Some of the excitement is without doubt because I feel that the first African-American president heralds a change in attitude of a nation and because of the domination of that nation, to a degree, the world at large. I’ve always believed that he should win but I admit I was of the extremely cynical view that the peoples of the United States would never elect an African American president. I’ve rarely been so pleased to have been proved wrong. I recognise that this is one of those genuinely historical moments. It’s akin to watching the Berlin Wall falling (literally, falling), the release of Nelson Mandela or the premiership of Margaret Thatcher. Though the first female prime minister of the UK seems rather tame by comparison to the others, it was a change that changed Britain and the world so deserves a mention. Obama as president feels bigger though. It feels bigger than all of these.

As a parent it’s no overstatement to say that I actually feel as though the world just became a safer place for my children. I’m a UK citizen. My family and I enjoy peace and security that lots of people can only dream of and yet still I feel the world just got safer. Very strange that the appointment of one man to office (I know, he’s not there yet but you know what I mean) can have such an effect on one who is frankly, usually dismissive of world affairs and politicians generally. I think (I hope I get this right)  it was Winston Churchill who said “Any person who seeks public office is eminently unsuitable for the job.” I’ve always liked that and to a large degree I believe it but today I believe it a little less.

With an early start this morning I managed to hear the last few minutes of Obama’s speech and very impressive it was too. Passionate, yes. But measured, practical, restrained and even to a non-US citizen, uplifting. One can’t help but feel that this man realises the challenges the USA faces.

As a final, possibly trite, observation I must say that whenever I have heard George Bush Jnr. speaking I have felt the sort of discomfort one feels when someone clearly unsuited and incapable is thrust unfortunately into a public speaking role. Listening to Bush over the last two terms has felt like being perpetually stuck at the worst wedding speech you could imagine. The delivery is so bad it has you squirming in your seat, embarrassed by proxy.

Regardless of his policies, Obama’s eloquence alone; the simple fact that he is capable of delivering a speech or answering a question in what feels like a genuine, knowledgeable and passionate tone will be a huge boon to America’s profile worldwide. Like it or not citizens of the United States, the only American most people will ‘know’ is the one who appears on their TV with the sub-title President. This is who they think ALL Americans are. For the past 8 years the world has seen you, unfairly, as bumbling idiots.  That is about to change.

Aaaaarghhh!  No matter where I work there is always some FW coffee drinker who is utterly incapable of keeping the coffee (for the more metropolitan among you, know this: most of the country’s coffee drinkers have granulated instant, particularly when the company is paying) granules out of the sugar.

Now us tea drinkers are resigned to visually filtering each spoonful of sugar on its way from jar to cup because the coffee comedian couldn’t figure out that it is possible to put sugar into the cup BEFORE the coffee and that they could do this with a dry spoon. No, the brain-dead in these parts like to use a damp spoon, plunge it into the coffee granules, empty the non-sticking bits into the cup then use the coffee coated spoon to retrieve sugar, depositing in the process granules in the sugar pot.

Perhaps I will split open a tea bag or twenty and mingle it in with the coffee granules. Let’s see how they like picking floaty bits from their cup of coffee.

Swines. Inconsiderate, lazy, stupid swines.