Merry Everyone

Thanks for listening, bestest wishes and a Very Merry Christmas to you, I hope it brings you every excess.

Frightful

I have now realised something about myself.

I am a total wuss.

However, I am currently a total wuss with no broken limbs to my name. This fact does vaguely take the sting out of my wussiness, and helps me ignore the horn-toots and yells of "get out of the way you fat wanker" when I'm walking in the road in an attempt not to slip, fall and break my bottom on the pavement.

In case you didn't realise, it's icey out.

Not that I didn't leap out of bed with all the enthusiasm of a puppy in field of slippers when it snowed. But then it squashes down, freezes again, melts a bit, freezes again, gets drizzled on and freezes again. At which point my enthusiasm wanes faster than if I attended a party where the buffet is entirely Marmite based.

I like wandering about, it's easily the most relaxing way to travel and this will continue to be the case until fellatio becomes a mode of transport. So knowing that wherever I choose to wander will involve neither a purposeful stride, manly strut or sedate amble, but instead an undignified penguin waddle interspersed with sudden lunges towards fences, car mirrors and old ladies as my feet skid on some frozen stuff removes the relaxation like it's a bloated appendix. Fences are fine to grab onto of course, but there is little hope that a wingmirror will survive a plummeting bear. And as for landing on an osteoporosis riddled old lady I fear I'd be describing the feeling of 206 aged bones shattering beneath me to an army of therapists for many years to come.

Presumably this is covered in a deleted scene of 'Holiday Inn', in which Bing Crosby falls on his arse, much to Fred Astaire's hilarity. At which point Bing picks himself up and totters towards him, eerily intoning 'White Christmas' through clenched teeth before burying a tap-shoe in his cheery face.

Meat me in some fun disco

It doesn't happen very often but last night I visited a certain royal-sounding burger establishment. Being that I hadn't eaten since the previous evening I was particularly hungry so chose the largest burger on the menu.

Behold, 'The Triple Whopper'.

Yes yes, I know I'm a greedy bum so there's no need to tell me.

I suppose the warning signs were present when I plucked it from the bag and realised I needed two hands to haul it out. It may have looked like three meat patties in a bap, but the BK chefs may as well have simply trotted out of the kitchen to an adjacent field and glued half a bun to each side of a perplexed cow with mayonnaise, then wiped its bum and hearded it into a paper bag with a portion of fries clenched between it's buttocks.

Not that it wasn't lovely, after all it was meat in bread, but it was a hard slog. When my friend suggested we leave the restaurant I was forced to tell him "I'll need a minute I'm afraid" accompanied by such sighing and rubbing of tum that I could have been mistaken for a heavily pregnant lady. When we did finally leave and we said our goodbyes I was enduring a beef-overload and was so incoherent I could merely moo and wave a hoof as a vague 'farewell'.

Actually, since I mentioned pregnant ladies earlier, have you seen this symbol on wine bottles?

Now I know it's saying that it's not recommended for long haired darts players, but doesn't it just look like a flimsily adapted 'No Pregnancy!' warning? Maybe it's a Chinese ad-agency and they simply replace what the woman is holding.

I wonder how many times they've gone for the Viagra contract.

Must be spoiling us

Ooh, chocolate, yum. Munch munch sick. That's how chocolate works isn't it? Stuff yourself with brown morsels until your ateries are furrier than a bear's bottom, whilst shoving phrases such as "I really shouldn't" past the masticated gunk collected in your face-hole. Everyone loves chocs.

Which brings me to Ferrero Rocher. You see, there are posh chocolates (have a quick glance around here) and there are cheap chocolates (Cadbury's Misshapes for instance) and then there are chocolates that think they are posh but really aren't. Ferrero Rocher does not stand alone in this category, 'After Eight' was a trailblazer, and Toblerone have recently joined in by releasing the skinny and all really rather pointless box of slices known as 'Tobelle'. But Ferrero Rocher are synonymous with attempts at upmarket affordability, due in no small part to one of the most famous advertising campaigns in the history of advertising: 'The Ambassador's Reception'. You remember the one, lots of glamorous society types are attending a ball when suddenly a butler appears carrying a stack of chocolate treats on a silver platter. Everyone gasps, says the ambassador is spoiling them and treat themselves to a foil-wrapped orgasm.

However, as the saying goes, times change. People change. Interest rates fluctuate. In these days of politicians fiddling their expenses in ways that the rest of us would never DREAM of doing, we are no longer persuaded to behave like them. "Eat these, they are all eating them in Whitehall" is a statement that carries as much persuasive power as X-Factor finalist Stacey Solomon's post-performance chat contains coherance. So where to go from there? Well, we live in an increasingly secular age, so the logical route to take is religion.

Obviously.

A modern take on religion of course, nothing antiquated. So therefore the new Ferrero Rocher campaign involves Greek gods sat on mount Olympus munching the eponymous nut/paste/wafer/chocolate/more nut layered ball. They then drop it like the butter-fingered boobs they are and we're back in Prometheus territory. Sadly we do not then get to see anyone being lashed to a rock while their inconveniently re-generating guts are eaten daily by a hungry bird of prey until the end of time. Which is a terrible shame. "Oh Zeus" the eagle would squawk, "with this liver you are truly spoiling us".

Nothing says 'eat me' like ancient Greek mythology now does it.

Wise

Someone at work left early in order to see her daughter's nativity play. The daughter in question was playing 'The Disco Diva'. This is new to me, I’m not sure where she fits in to the story. Presumably they have written in a fourth Wise Man who brings the gift of funk.

Festive Spittery

What are you doing for Christmas? Are you going over to Jamie Oliver's? Of course you are! In fact, we ALL are. Invited that is. However I imagine the reception we would receive if we were to turn would be remarkably different to that implied by the trailer (for new series 'Jamie's Family Christmas'). Rather than curled up by his fireplace thrashing his Nan at Monopoly, we'd be sat at home watching the Queen's speech on haemorrhoid cushions having been violently rimmed by his fat-tongued dobermans.

The series looks like standard Oliver fayre so fingers crossed it barely grazes my eyeballs. One difference is that this time he genuinely seems to know the people he's cooking for. They are his family after all. Previous instances of his Naked Cheffery generally involve the camera crew loitering around his kitchen until his wife calls him to say she's bringing some chardonnayed-up friends over, and could he rustle something up. "Yeth of courth I will thweetheart" he blurts and away he goes. They then 'arrive' and we enjoy some clumsy ad-libbing where he asks how their night was. Their mouths say "it was lovely" but their eyes say 'I'm sorry? My agent said I just needed to walk through the door, eat the food and not laugh at your face. I wasn't expecting to be one of Paul Merton's Improv. Chums'.

I admit I can't deny his success, he has cornered an entire area of the culinary market so I applaud him for that. Personally I always preferred herbs finely chopped rather than pulled apart by sausage fingers and emptied on top of my dinner like the contents of a flymo basket, but what do I know? Actually, since you ask, I know that the likelihood of my Christmas dinner not having a spittle glaze is significantly better than at the Oliver house.

'My wife is the biggest gravy fan in the world' his face flaps at us. Words escaping his lips like someone strugging through a carwash, fricatives misting the camera lens like a greenhouse in Autumn. Well yes Jamie, we know. She hopped on that train sixteen years ago. Didn't you notice? To quote Nick Griffin, "it was in all the papers".