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Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Apart from having to put up with being dictated to about having to take off two inconvenient days from the day job and putting up with all and sundry assuming that you actually want to join in, how can you avoid all the obscene idolatry worship of Mammon, self indulgence and self congratulation?
The so-called "Christmas Eve" and the "New Year's Eve" days are quite possibly the worst (even more terrible than St Patrick's Day in the following respect!). This is when all the amateur drinkers come out and make ninnies of themselves. And then there's the boring bank holidays on December 25 (Gregorian Calendar) when they are no newspapers published and few pub or restaurants are open (Thank the gods for the Muslim community whose hospitality I especially enjoyed on this day last year, eating a halal lunch of haleem and nan).
As the horrid month of December approaches, I sit wishing it away and look forward to the normality that January always brings.
The Christmas festival is Ok if you're a Christian of course (which I'm certainly NOT!) but I am referring "Xmas"; the institution the majority of all sorts do; the non-religious version which is a celebration of spending money, conspicuous consumption, wasting electricity and confusing and deceiving children with the Santa Claus lie (* see below for more on this subject).
Xmas=££$$$€€€€ (non-religious festival)
Christmas= beautiful, modest & simple spiritual festival for real Christians symbolically celebrating the arrival of their deity.
Christmas needs to be reclaimed by the Christians and treated in the same way as Eid el Fitr, Diwali, Hannakah and so forth are by Muslims, Hindus and Jews. Then a bit of cultural/ spiritual visiting maybe appropriate. But not the horrid secular godless cliched knee jerk bean fest that it has become. As I understand it Xmas has little to do with Christian values. Even "Christ" has removed and replaced by "X": the unknown!
(by the way: I know the X may be considered as the Greek letter Chi and in representing first sound of the word Christ presents an abbreviated version of the word "Chistmas")
Aren't there any Christians out there that agree?
* Then there is the popular image of a avuncular Father Christmas sporting a big white beard, rosy cheeks and wearing red robes dressed with white fur driving a sleigh full of toys, drawn by reindeer which was invented by the publicists for the Coca Cola Company around about 1910. They chose that colour scheme because it was (and still is) Cokes corporate livery. Previously Father Christmas/ Santa Claus/ St Nicholas was not as popular as it is now, not as standardized in appearance. And certainly not an advertisement for a ruthless junk food corporation!
It seems to fit in with the popular secular notion of Xmas nicely that one of the enduring visuals is nothing more than an advert for an American soft drink that rots our teeth and promotes & patronizes coca/ cocaine producers in South America.
Anyone fancy a two day marathon session somewhere instead?
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Xmas is what you make it. For me it's a stressfull time, due to some old stuff, but it has it's moments. To me it means being with family and friends, eating good food, and approaching a shiny, fresh new year.
Had I the option to attend a two day marathon session instead? Oh yes.
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
TWO days off work...........?!?!?***!!!!
If only, mate.
As I'm paid by the job/day, here in the UK ( you don't say anything about yourself, Krick, some small biog would be useful, approx location, instruments played, experience, embroider for amusement by all means ), cause I ASSUME you're in the US, many things shut down 24 th to 02/09, especially many of my opportunities for work, excepting a possible New Years Eve gig on occasions.
Go and work for a homeless persons shelter over Christmas if you want to stop being such a misanthrope.
Now you've turned ME into a misanthrope.
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Do you know this song, by Tom Lehrer? I reckon that it would be right up your street ...
Christmas time is here, by golly,
Disapproval would be folly,
Deck the halls with hunks of holly,
Fill the glass and don't say when.
Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens,
Put out the punch, drag out the dickens,
Even though the prospect sickens,
Brother, here we go again.
On Christmas Day you can't get sore,
Your fellow man you must adore,
You can rob him all the more,
The other three-hundred-and-sixty four.
Relations barring no expense, will
Send some useless old utensil
Or a matching pen and pencil,
Just the thing I need, now nice.
It doesn't matter how sincere it is,
Or how heart-felt the spirit,
Sentiment will not endear it -
What's important is the price!
Hark the Herald Tribune sings ...
Advertising wondrous things ...
God rest ye merry merchants ...
May ye make the yuletide pay ...
Angels we have heard on high ...
Tell us to go out and buy ... So,
Let the raucous sleigh bells jingle,
Hail our dear old friend Chris Kringle,
Driving his reindeer across the sky -
Don't stand underneath, when they fly by!
Maybe you should read "A Christmas Carol", by Charles Dickens ..
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
I saw a Peruvian farmer/ businessman on TV saying that if Coca Cola don't put coca leaves in their vile brew, he has no idea what they do do with the thousands of tons of it that they export to them every year!
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
COCA-COLA IS WONDERFUL!!! It is better than beer! It chases whiskey best of anything! It deserves its own holiday!. It is intimately tied to Christmas because it should be!
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
The winter break in North-East England used to be quite unavoidable - I think it is less so, now that the chain stores at any rate open on more days than the shops used to at this time.
Long ago, the English opted to celebrate Christmas, but not really the New Year; the Scots would not celebrate Christmas, not wishing to profane it with revelry, but devoted the New Year to dark excess.
The Geordies and their neighbours, being both and neither, convened a synod to decide which path to follow. Their decision was unanimous, and reached rather faster than a particle can travel ten yards going at full speed inside the CERN Hadron Collider.
They got hammered and wrecked for a week over Christmas, and without a break got slaughtered and trashed for a week over the New Year.
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
"1, Christmas= beautiful, modest & simple spiritual festival for real Christians...2, Christmas needs to be reclaimed by the Christians."
1. For millions, now and for the last two thousand years it is;
2.Ahm, they do don't they?
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Yes to peace on earth, friends, family, food, drink and good tunes. No to crass consumerism, ubiquitous abuse of the same twelve seasonal melodies, and pointless excess. Most folks can use a lift at the darkest time of the year, and a time-honoured tradition of celebrating the gradual pre-eminence of old Sol is worth a tune or two.
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
I always find it funny that people get so happy, jolly and act so nicely to each other this time of year.
Then, after it's done, they go back to being jerks. Talk about missing the point.
Ah well, I leave you with the thoughts of Kermit the Frog, aka Jim Henson ("The Christmas Wish", Dan Wheetman, 1979)
That's what I think of when I think of Christmas. Hippie stuff, love and peace. No gods, no flagrant consumerism, no predatory capitalism, suckering in the poor to blow their precious pennies on BS they don't need to make the rich richer, just peace and love...dude.
I don't know if you believe in Christmas
Or if you have presents underneath the Christmas tree
But if you believe in love, that will be more than enough
For you to come and celebrate with me
For I have held the precious gift that love brings
Even though I never saw a Christmas star
I know there is a light, I have felt it burn inside
And I have seen it shining from afar
Christmas is the time to come together
A time to put all differences aside
And I reach out my hand to the family of Man
To share the joy I feel at Christmas time
For the truth that binds us all together
I would like to say a simple prayer
That at this special time you will have true peace of mind
And love to last throughout the coming year
And if you believe in love
That will be more than enough
For peace to last throughout the coming year
And peace on earth will last throughout the year
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
If old Sol can't do a better job in the UK than he did last year, perhaps his contract should be revoked and tenders for the job invited from other quarters.
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
I hate the hot sunny weather!
And if we fire Sol do you suggest another star for the solar system to orbit. A tricky move but maybe it could be achieved. Nearest would be Proxima Centuri (along with Alpha Centuri and so forth). For a nice red glow Beteguese (Alpha Orionis) would be good but it would envelop the Earth's orbit. Maybe we should all bugger off out of this galaxy altogether and go to the neighboring Andromeda galaxy (M31). It would take a million years at the speed of light and there's to guarantee that the pubs there do Irish Trad sessions. We'd have to get Nasa to upgarde and point the Hubble Space telescope and see if we can see any set of pipes, wooden flutes, drunk bodhran beaters or tuneless guitar players.
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
I'm not religious at all and I hate the rampant commercialism of this time of year, but like the idea of celebrating the solstice and the fact that after Dec 21 the days will start getting longer. This is worth celebrating, especially in Scotland!
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
The Uk papers have contained accounts of some Del Boy attempt to create a "Lapland" in Dorset on a shoe-string, with a threadbare set-up in a muddy patch of land complete with some miserable huskies and other animals. The punters, who came in numbers, were rightly angry at being ripped off.
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Hogfather was actually made for/by Sky, and has never been on the Beeb, alas.
BUT ..... I'm in it. Not clearly visible, as far as I can tell, but I'm at the feast of Hogwatch at the Unseen University ( actually the Guildhall crypt in the City ). This is what hairy beardie folkies get up to in their spare time. By the way, those were real pigs at the table, dead, cooked, and SMELLING after three days' shooting ! "Not to touch !" said the crew. Terry Pratchett was there on the day, strolling around, chatting to people, including me. And, of course, he's in the show, at the very end, as the Toymaker.
I would say it's a dark show, inevitably, without the wordplay of the page, but still an amazing production.
The book itself is one of Pratchett's finest, in my NOT so humble opinion, but I think that applies to about half of the Discworld cycle anyway.
Books to read about; Christmas; Hogfather.
The financial crisis; Making Money.
Racial conflict; Thud.
And so on.......
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Respect to you Pete, and respect to Terry. I agree that most of his books are the best when you read them.
wrt Christmas-I've plenty of time to practice. The factory is shutting down for three weeks. We make enclosures for computers and our biggest customers are financial institutions and banks. Hum.
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
I think you guys need to lighten up a bit about Christmas. I mean, take a deep breath, remember that it's only one or two days out of the year, and you can pull through.
(I'd say the OP isn't from the states. For one thing, restaurants, shops and newspapers are all available on christmas day over here. And for the other, you can actually avoid the whole commercial thing if you want to. I've been doing it for decades. And no, I don't happen to be Christian, so all the stuff you complain about ought to be twice as annoying to me, since it ain't my holiday. I actually volunteer to work on christmas day so that someone who cares about it can be home with their family.
so get a grip.
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
What we'll be eating on the 25th is debatable - two vegetarian children, nobody but me likes sprouts, all Irish pork is also off the menu for the moment.
My New Yorker partner has taken 30 years + to acclimatise to that thing that is the British Christmas. I think she actually likes Christmas pudding now....
But we will be trying to get to some theatrical production over the holidays, if not an actual traditional pantomime "Look behind you !" "Oh yes, he is ! "Oh no he isn't".....etc....
But the long layoff over the holiday will not be shared by my daughter, who has decided to jack in her unsatisfying job in Norwich, and will be selling Dysons in stores in The Smoke over Christmas. People are going mad for sales over here - don't go into Woolworths if you are claustrophobic ( the Five and Dime ), they are discounting everything as they struggle to keep afloat.
But nobody makes any films until January, so I'm very quiet. What, me, quiet ?
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Since I work as a medical clerk in a hospital, I am rarely off on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve. The patients don't stop being sick temporarily just because it is an "Official Holiday". Someone has to be there to help take care of the patients.
I have read several of the DiscWorld books by Terry Pratchett and I have enjoyed every book I have read. I haven't seen any of the movies yet but I did see a preview for one of them at a local movie theater. I am glad to see that there are some other people on this web site who like Pratchett's books.
For the record, I do like to drink an occasional Coca-cola.
If I drink coffee, instead of adding cream and sugar (like my wife), I like to add cocoa powder to my coffee to make it drinkable for me but I can't help it because I am a chocoholic.
I don't like all of the commercialism which is now associated with Christmas and wish it could be celebrated in a simpler way and fashion.
At a Christmas party last year or the year before, there was a gift exchange and I got stuck with a Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer doll. If you pushed a button inside Rudolph's left ear, he would sing his signature song. Yes, his little red nose lit up while he was singing.
The Monday after this party, I went to this monthly song circle where I accompany a group of singers by playing my bass fiddle (or string bass or double bass as some people call this instrument). When it was my turn to talk, I told this group of mixed nuts about the gift exchange at the Christmas party. Then I bought Rudolph out from behind my bass and pressed the button in his left ear so he could sing for them. We all got a good laugh out of my story.
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
I like Terry Pratchett, tho' haven't read any for a long time.
The Discworld city of Ankh-Morpork is remarkably like Durham (UK) - an aloof patrician citadel (with the Cathedral on it) with a roiling down-town below.
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
I hope your local river is in a better condition than the river in Ankh-Morpork......Durham Uni, isn't that for people not quite good enough to get into Oxbridge ? ( My daughter went to the University of Easy Access ( UEA ), no it wasn't....).
I would add that I only drink Coca-Cola when there is absolutely no other equivalent available and I need the caffeine - any one who wants to know why try an advanced Google about the company and what their suppliers do to trades unionists in the Third World. So what they did to the image of Father Christmas is yet another blot on their escutcheon !
And hospitals over Christmas - my daughter ( again ! ) broke her leg on Boxing Day ( that's Dec 26th to you yanks ) falling off her roller skates. Good thing they weren't a Christmas present, that would have been adding insult to injury........anyway, there she is stuck in hospital till the New Year because half the staff are off and they need to let the swelling go down as well before they plaster.
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
The US Army Corps of Engineers built several dams and locks on the Arkansas River to regulate the flow so barges could travel all of the way upriver to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Now we jokingly and sarcastically refer to the river as the Arkansas River-Lake.
I went to the University of Absolutely Last Resort (UALR actually refers to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock).
Yes I do know that December twenty-sixth is called Boxing Day in England.
Here , if someone breaks their leg on Christmas Day or the day after Christmas, they would have fixed the patient's leg that day because the local hospitals always have an OR crew on call for emergency surgery no matter what time of year it is or what day it is.
How long did it take for your daughter's leg to heal?
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
"What we'll be eating on the 25th is debatable - two vegetarian children"
They're stringy and hard to catch. You might want to stick with a turkey or goose, depending on local tradition.
Also, Terry Pratchett is awesome, and makes me want to pour billions of dollars into Alzheimer's research because I want his mind around for a few more decades (he's been diagnosed with an early-onset form of the disease).
Yes, Durham Uni students are routinely referred to as "Oxbridge rejects". Some of them are. This need *not* mean (necessarily) that they are stupid, unlikeable or a waste of space.
Durham Uni was definitely founded on the Oxbridge model, and until quite recent times the four colleges by the Cathedral were all-male (though they're all co-ed now). This was a recipe for very bloke-ish behaviour and high jinks which probably got up people's noses at times and inspired the term "Oxbridge rejects" as a put-down. But to some locals, just raising one's voice in a Home Counties accent has been taken as an unendurable intrusion, which I take as a mite over-sensitive.
The flip-side to the Uni in Durham is not preposterously bad behaviour by students, who are overwhelmingly harmless, but the fact that most of the city centre's houses are student digs, bought by parents or buy-to-letters, deserted some of the year and neglected and disgorging noise and rubbish the rest!
But the pluses as far as I'm concerned outweigh that. Quite apart from any academic successes in finding out the secrets of the universe and the meaning of life, the Uni is very good for the town's economic and cultural life. It has helped hold up Durham as a comparatively buoyant centre with a buzz to it, and there's all too little of this round here outside of Newcastle.
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
I have been to Durham on many occasions, mostly as a student, for track & X-country races, but also recently (well, about 5 or 6 years ago - recent for me these days) and have always enjoyed my stay there. Nice countryside nearby, nice town, good pubs, friendly people, including the students - even if they mostly do originate in Surrey.
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Just trying to see where the shades are in Durham but I think the Elm Tree is the Mended Drum.
Durham would not have me
had to go to Hull had better sessions for begginers in them days
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
jingle bells, jingle bells,bazouki dave's string broke.he uses laky bands you see, twanged the whistle down me throat.He plays reels and slides and jigs and things he will even play a fling.His twanging thing will surely sing when he gets a new string.
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Actually I liked Durham too, on a brief visit years ago, and I'm sure it's one of those smallish uni towns where town and gown are inevitably linked for the the benefit of all. Nice fortress-silhouette to the Cathedral too. Just that we knew one teenage friend of the kids who was SURE she was going to Oxbridge, only got into Durham, and cut all her old friends dead ever since. But then that's just snobbery for you, no reflection on the uni.
Meanwhile...."Happy Hogswatch !".
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Perhaps she was ashamed at being turned down by Oxbridge and running scared that her friends (or "friends") would take the p*ss out of her.
Well, *most* of the students are harmless. It's actually the grads and research fellows and stuff that want watching. One was hauled in recently for organising jihad and another nicked a First Edition Shakespeare from the library. It turned up at a sale in America, I think.
One of the attractions for Oxbridge rejects is that there's a sizeable river to row on.
Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Apart from having to put up with being dictated to about having to take off two inconvenient days from the day job and putting up with all and sundry assuming that you actually want to join in, how can you avoid all the obscene idolatry worship of Mammon, self indulgence and self congratulation?
The so-called "Christmas Eve" and the "New Year's Eve" days are quite possibly the worst (even more terrible than St Patrick's Day in the following respect!). This is when all the amateur drinkers come out and make ninnies of themselves. And then there's the boring bank holidays on December 25 (Gregorian Calendar) when they are no newspapers published and few pub or restaurants are open (Thank the gods for the Muslim community whose hospitality I especially enjoyed on this day last year, eating a halal lunch of haleem and nan).
As the horrid month of December approaches, I sit wishing it away and look forward to the normality that January always brings.
The Christmas festival is Ok if you're a Christian of course (which I'm certainly NOT!) but I am referring "Xmas"; the institution the majority of all sorts do; the non-religious version which is a celebration of spending money, conspicuous consumption, wasting electricity and confusing and deceiving children with the Santa Claus lie (* see below for more on this subject).
Xmas=££$$$€€€€ (non-religious festival)
Christmas= beautiful, modest & simple spiritual festival for real Christians symbolically celebrating the arrival of their deity.
Christmas needs to be reclaimed by the Christians and treated in the same way as Eid el Fitr, Diwali, Hannakah and so forth are by Muslims, Hindus and Jews. Then a bit of cultural/ spiritual visiting maybe appropriate. But not the horrid secular godless cliched knee jerk bean fest that it has become. As I understand it Xmas has little to do with Christian values. Even "Christ" has removed and replaced by "X": the unknown!
(by the way: I know the X may be considered as the Greek letter Chi and in representing first sound of the word Christ presents an abbreviated version of the word "Chistmas")
Aren't there any Christians out there that agree?
* Then there is the popular image of a avuncular Father Christmas sporting a big white beard, rosy cheeks and wearing red robes dressed with white fur driving a sleigh full of toys, drawn by reindeer which was invented by the publicists for the Coca Cola Company around about 1910. They chose that colour scheme because it was (and still is) Cokes corporate livery. Previously Father Christmas/ Santa Claus/ St Nicholas was not as popular as it is now, not as standardized in appearance. And certainly not an advertisement for a ruthless junk food corporation!
It seems to fit in with the popular secular notion of Xmas nicely that one of the enduring visuals is nothing more than an advert for an American soft drink that rots our teeth and promotes & patronizes coca/ cocaine producers in South America.
Anyone fancy a two day marathon session somewhere instead?
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by Krick Stahlschwanz
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
I agree, and I'm sure God would rather have us playing tunes than spending more money than we have on useless junk.
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by Pontus Adefjord
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
May the Force be with you.
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by Lint - upon - Tweed
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
100% agree
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by dee.
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
But it's the only time I get to see my whole family in the year, and we're going to be playing some tunes this year, so it isn't all bad
If you can blot out the crap and see the good things about it, it isn't a bad time of year. Difficult I know!
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by dee.
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Xmas is what you make it. For me it's a stressfull time, due to some old stuff, but it has it's moments. To me it means being with family and friends, eating good food, and approaching a shiny, fresh new year.
Had I the option to attend a two day marathon session instead? Oh yes.
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by snorre
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
If it wasn't for inane stuff like Secret Bloody Santas and those dreary office Christmas parties then I would love this time of year.
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by No Cause For Alarm
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
TWO days off work...........?!?!?***!!!!
If only, mate.
As I'm paid by the job/day, here in the UK ( you don't say anything about yourself, Krick, some small biog would be useful, approx location, instruments played, experience, embroider for amusement by all means ), cause I ASSUME you're in the US, many things shut down 24 th to 02/09, especially many of my opportunities for work, excepting a possible New Years Eve gig on occasions.
Go and work for a homeless persons shelter over Christmas if you want to stop being such a misanthrope.
Now you've turned ME into a misanthrope.
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Do you know this song, by Tom Lehrer? I reckon that it would be right up your street ...
Christmas time is here, by golly,
Disapproval would be folly,
Deck the halls with hunks of holly,
Fill the glass and don't say when.
Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens,
Put out the punch, drag out the dickens,
Even though the prospect sickens,
Brother, here we go again.
On Christmas Day you can't get sore,
Your fellow man you must adore,
You can rob him all the more,
The other three-hundred-and-sixty four.
Relations barring no expense, will
Send some useless old utensil
Or a matching pen and pencil,
Just the thing I need, now nice.
It doesn't matter how sincere it is,
Or how heart-felt the spirit,
Sentiment will not endear it -
What's important is the price!
Hark the Herald Tribune sings ...
Advertising wondrous things ...
God rest ye merry merchants ...
May ye make the yuletide pay ...
Angels we have heard on high ...
Tell us to go out and buy ... So,
Let the raucous sleigh bells jingle,
Hail our dear old friend Chris Kringle,
Driving his reindeer across the sky -
Don't stand underneath, when they fly by!
Maybe you should read "A Christmas Carol", by Charles Dickens ..
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
I didn't know Santa and the reindeer were the creation (in their standard modern form) of Coca-Cola ad men!
I don't think they put coca in the drink any more.
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
I like Christmas Eve.
It's a fine tune.
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by Rudall the time
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
I saw a Peruvian farmer/ businessman on TV saying that if Coca Cola don't put coca leaves in their vile brew, he has no idea what they do do with the thousands of tons of it that they export to them every year!
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by Krick Stahlschwanz
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Actually the Christians stole the winter solstice from the pagans and made it Christmas (if not Xmas)
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by suesinger
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
COCA-COLA IS WONDERFUL!!! It is better than beer! It chases whiskey best of anything! It deserves its own holiday!. It is intimately tied to Christmas because it should be!
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by justjim
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
The winter break in North-East England used to be quite unavoidable - I think it is less so, now that the chain stores at any rate open on more days than the shops used to at this time.
Long ago, the English opted to celebrate Christmas, but not really the New Year; the Scots would not celebrate Christmas, not wishing to profane it with revelry, but devoted the New Year to dark excess.
The Geordies and their neighbours, being both and neither, convened a synod to decide which path to follow. Their decision was unanimous, and reached rather faster than a particle can travel ten yards going at full speed inside the CERN Hadron Collider.
They got hammered and wrecked for a week over Christmas, and without a break got slaughtered and trashed for a week over the New Year.
The tradition continues.
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
"1, Christmas= beautiful, modest & simple spiritual festival for real Christians...2, Christmas needs to be reclaimed by the Christians."
1. For millions, now and for the last two thousand years it is;
2.Ahm, they do don't they?
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Tell them about it:
http://www.wheresmybeach.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/bondi_beach_christmas.jpg
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/32/46614948_77375ba6b7.jpg
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by hotsauce
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
I find that this period is best spent reading Terry Pratchett's "Hogfather".
Apparently the BBC made a TV film of it, which I still haven't seen...
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by Joe CSS
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Yes to peace on earth, friends, family, food, drink and good tunes. No to crass consumerism, ubiquitous abuse of the same twelve seasonal melodies, and pointless excess. Most folks can use a lift at the darkest time of the year, and a time-honoured tradition of celebrating the gradual pre-eminence of old Sol is worth a tune or two.
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by drone
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=lH0OLKAXw3I&feature=related
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by Joe CSS
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
The BBC's Hogfather was very good, if you ask me. It's pretty dark and scary - in the nicest possible way - and quite true to the book.
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by Gzeg
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
The revelry you complain of is simply our inner pagans reclaiming mid-winter from the Christians
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by Bren
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
I always find it funny that people get so happy, jolly and act so nicely to each other this time of year.
Then, after it's done, they go back to being jerks. Talk about missing the point.
Ah well, I leave you with the thoughts of Kermit the Frog, aka Jim Henson ("The Christmas Wish", Dan Wheetman, 1979)
That's what I think of when I think of Christmas. Hippie stuff, love and peace. No gods, no flagrant consumerism, no predatory capitalism, suckering in the poor to blow their precious pennies on BS they don't need to make the rich richer, just peace and love...dude.
I don't know if you believe in Christmas
Or if you have presents underneath the Christmas tree
But if you believe in love, that will be more than enough
For you to come and celebrate with me
For I have held the precious gift that love brings
Even though I never saw a Christmas star
I know there is a light, I have felt it burn inside
And I have seen it shining from afar
Christmas is the time to come together
A time to put all differences aside
And I reach out my hand to the family of Man
To share the joy I feel at Christmas time
For the truth that binds us all together
I would like to say a simple prayer
That at this special time you will have true peace of mind
And love to last throughout the coming year
And if you believe in love
That will be more than enough
For peace to last throughout the coming year
And peace on earth will last throughout the year
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
If old Sol can't do a better job in the UK than he did last year, perhaps his contract should be revoked and tenders for the job invited from other quarters.
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
I hate the hot sunny weather!
And if we fire Sol do you suggest another star for the solar system to orbit. A tricky move but maybe it could be achieved. Nearest would be Proxima Centuri (along with Alpha Centuri and so forth). For a nice red glow Beteguese (Alpha Orionis) would be good but it would envelop the Earth's orbit. Maybe we should all bugger off out of this galaxy altogether and go to the neighboring Andromeda galaxy (M31). It would take a million years at the speed of light and there's to guarantee that the pubs there do Irish Trad sessions. We'd have to get Nasa to upgarde and point the Hubble Space telescope and see if we can see any set of pipes, wooden flutes, drunk bodhran beaters or tuneless guitar players.
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by Krick Stahlschwanz
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
I'm not religious at all and I hate the rampant commercialism of this time of year, but like the idea of celebrating the solstice and the fact that after Dec 21 the days will start getting longer. This is worth celebrating, especially in Scotland!
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
And we get four days off at New Year!!
Big semi-annual session at my place New Years Day nicht!
What's not to like, you old humbuggers?
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by Bren
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Yes, Silver Spear, but they may not get any lighter or warmer!
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
The Uk papers have contained accounts of some Del Boy attempt to create a "Lapland" in Dorset on a shoe-string, with a threadbare set-up in a muddy patch of land complete with some miserable huskies and other animals. The punters, who came in numbers, were rightly angry at being ripped off.
One headline read thus, or very like:
PUNTERS BEAT UP SANTA AND THREE ELVES
...Says it all, really.
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Nicholas - I expect the punters were angry because there wasn't any Lap dancing ...
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Hogfather was actually made for/by Sky, and has never been on the Beeb, alas.
BUT ..... I'm in it. Not clearly visible, as far as I can tell, but I'm at the feast of Hogwatch at the Unseen University ( actually the Guildhall crypt in the City ). This is what hairy beardie folkies get up to in their spare time. By the way, those were real pigs at the table, dead, cooked, and SMELLING after three days' shooting ! "Not to touch !" said the crew. Terry Pratchett was there on the day, strolling around, chatting to people, including me. And, of course, he's in the show, at the very end, as the Toymaker.
I would say it's a dark show, inevitably, without the wordplay of the page, but still an amazing production.
The book itself is one of Pratchett's finest, in my NOT so humble opinion, but I think that applies to about half of the Discworld cycle anyway.
Books to read about; Christmas; Hogfather.
The financial crisis; Making Money.
Racial conflict; Thud.
And so on.......
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
(The Dorset "Lapland" has now become known as "Cr*pland", one gathers.)
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
... they're not exactly "living in the lap of luxury", then ...!
# Posted on December 5th 2008 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
No, they're too close to Bournemouth, as Ian Hislop said this evening on HIGNFY....
# Posted on December 6th 2008 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Here Joe CSS is a Hogfather sampler:
http://www.broadcaster.com/clip/30485
# Posted on December 6th 2008 by Lint - upon - Tweed
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Pete, the fact that you're in the Hogfather film probably explains why I instantaneously detected that it was a quality piece of work.
I see someone's done a film of "The Colour of Magic" as well. Are you in that too? With any luck those will be our seasonal films this year.
# Posted on December 6th 2008 by Gzeg
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Krick.
In your profile you put "beware the po faced ones".
Pot calling the kettle black perhaps?
Bah humbug!........
# Posted on December 6th 2008 by banjoburger
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Respect to you Pete, and respect to Terry. I agree that most of his books are the best when you read them.
wrt Christmas-I've plenty of time to practice. The factory is shutting down for three weeks. We make enclosures for computers and our biggest customers are financial institutions and banks. Hum.
# Posted on December 7th 2008 by greg sheils
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
I think you guys need to lighten up a bit about Christmas. I mean, take a deep breath, remember that it's only one or two days out of the year, and you can pull through.
(I'd say the OP isn't from the states. For one thing, restaurants, shops and newspapers are all available on christmas day over here. And for the other, you can actually avoid the whole commercial thing if you want to. I've been doing it for decades. And no, I don't happen to be Christian, so all the stuff you complain about ought to be twice as annoying to me, since it ain't my holiday. I actually volunteer to work on christmas day so that someone who cares about it can be home with their family.
so get a grip.
# Posted on December 7th 2008 by Mandogal
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Nice thoughts Mandogal but I think you underestimate the pleasure we get over here from a good protracted whinge
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by Bren
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
over a turkey and a bottle of red each, of course
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
What we'll be eating on the 25th is debatable - two vegetarian children, nobody but me likes sprouts, all Irish pork is also off the menu for the moment.
My New Yorker partner has taken 30 years + to acclimatise to that thing that is the British Christmas. I think she actually likes Christmas pudding now....
But we will be trying to get to some theatrical production over the holidays, if not an actual traditional pantomime "Look behind you !" "Oh yes, he is ! "Oh no he isn't".....etc....
But the long layoff over the holiday will not be shared by my daughter, who has decided to jack in her unsatisfying job in Norwich, and will be selling Dysons in stores in The Smoke over Christmas. People are going mad for sales over here - don't go into Woolworths if you are claustrophobic ( the Five and Dime ), they are discounting everything as they struggle to keep afloat.
But nobody makes any films until January, so I'm very quiet. What, me, quiet ?
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Since I work as a medical clerk in a hospital, I am rarely off on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve. The patients don't stop being sick temporarily just because it is an "Official Holiday". Someone has to be there to help take care of the patients.
I have read several of the DiscWorld books by Terry Pratchett and I have enjoyed every book I have read. I haven't seen any of the movies yet but I did see a preview for one of them at a local movie theater. I am glad to see that there are some other people on this web site who like Pratchett's books.
For the record, I do like to drink an occasional Coca-cola.
If I drink coffee, instead of adding cream and sugar (like my wife), I like to add cocoa powder to my coffee to make it drinkable for me but I can't help it because I am a chocoholic.
I don't like all of the commercialism which is now associated with Christmas and wish it could be celebrated in a simpler way and fashion.
At a Christmas party last year or the year before, there was a gift exchange and I got stuck with a Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer doll. If you pushed a button inside Rudolph's left ear, he would sing his signature song. Yes, his little red nose lit up while he was singing.
The Monday after this party, I went to this monthly song circle where I accompany a group of singers by playing my bass fiddle (or string bass or double bass as some people call this instrument). When it was my turn to talk, I told this group of mixed nuts about the gift exchange at the Christmas party. Then I bought Rudolph out from behind my bass and pressed the button in his left ear so he could sing for them. We all got a good laugh out of my story.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by fauxcelt
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
I like Terry Pratchett, tho' haven't read any for a long time.
The Discworld city of Ankh-Morpork is remarkably like Durham (UK) - an aloof patrician citadel (with the Cathedral on it) with a roiling down-town below.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
I hope your local river is in a better condition than the river in Ankh-Morpork......Durham Uni, isn't that for people not quite good enough to get into Oxbridge ? ( My daughter went to the University of Easy Access ( UEA ), no it wasn't....).
I would add that I only drink Coca-Cola when there is absolutely no other equivalent available and I need the caffeine - any one who wants to know why try an advanced Google about the company and what their suppliers do to trades unionists in the Third World. So what they did to the image of Father Christmas is yet another blot on their escutcheon !
And hospitals over Christmas - my daughter ( again ! ) broke her leg on Boxing Day ( that's Dec 26th to you yanks ) falling off her roller skates. Good thing they weren't a Christmas present, that would have been adding insult to injury........anyway, there she is stuck in hospital till the New Year because half the staff are off and they need to let the swelling go down as well before they plaster.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
The US Army Corps of Engineers built several dams and locks on the Arkansas River to regulate the flow so barges could travel all of the way upriver to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Now we jokingly and sarcastically refer to the river as the Arkansas River-Lake.
I went to the University of Absolutely Last Resort (UALR actually refers to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock).
Yes I do know that December twenty-sixth is called Boxing Day in England.
Here , if someone breaks their leg on Christmas Day or the day after Christmas, they would have fixed the patient's leg that day because the local hospitals always have an OR crew on call for emergency surgery no matter what time of year it is or what day it is.
How long did it take for your daughter's leg to heal?
# Posted on December 10th 2008 by fauxcelt
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
"What we'll be eating on the 25th is debatable - two vegetarian children"
They're stringy and hard to catch. You might want to stick with a turkey or goose, depending on local tradition.
Also, Terry Pratchett is awesome, and makes me want to pour billions of dollars into Alzheimer's research because I want his mind around for a few more decades (he's been diagnosed with an early-onset form of the disease).
# Posted on December 10th 2008 by hotsauce
Re: The Oxbridge Rejects (for Guernsey Pete)
Yes, Durham Uni students are routinely referred to as "Oxbridge rejects". Some of them are. This need *not* mean (necessarily) that they are stupid, unlikeable or a waste of space.
Durham Uni was definitely founded on the Oxbridge model, and until quite recent times the four colleges by the Cathedral were all-male (though they're all co-ed now). This was a recipe for very bloke-ish behaviour and high jinks which probably got up people's noses at times and inspired the term "Oxbridge rejects" as a put-down. But to some locals, just raising one's voice in a Home Counties accent has been taken as an unendurable intrusion, which I take as a mite over-sensitive.
The flip-side to the Uni in Durham is not preposterously bad behaviour by students, who are overwhelmingly harmless, but the fact that most of the city centre's houses are student digs, bought by parents or buy-to-letters, deserted some of the year and neglected and disgorging noise and rubbish the rest!
But the pluses as far as I'm concerned outweigh that. Quite apart from any academic successes in finding out the secrets of the universe and the meaning of life, the Uni is very good for the town's economic and cultural life. It has helped hold up Durham as a comparatively buoyant centre with a buzz to it, and there's all too little of this round here outside of Newcastle.
# Posted on December 10th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
I have been to Durham on many occasions, mostly as a student, for track & X-country races, but also recently (well, about 5 or 6 years ago - recent for me these days) and have always enjoyed my stay there. Nice countryside nearby, nice town, good pubs, friendly people, including the students - even if they mostly do originate in Surrey.
# Posted on December 10th 2008 by Rudall the time
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Just trying to see where the shades are in Durham but I think the Elm Tree is the Mended Drum.
Durham would not have me
had to go to Hull had better sessions for begginers in them days
# Posted on December 10th 2008 by bazouki dave
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
jingle bells, jingle bells,bazouki dave's string broke.he uses laky bands you see, twanged the whistle down me throat.He plays reels and slides and jigs and things he will even play a fling.His twanging thing will surely sing when he gets a new string.
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by meles meles
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Actually I liked Durham too, on a brief visit years ago, and I'm sure it's one of those smallish uni towns where town and gown are inevitably linked for the the benefit of all. Nice fortress-silhouette to the Cathedral too. Just that we knew one teenage friend of the kids who was SURE she was going to Oxbridge, only got into Durham, and cut all her old friends dead ever since. But then that's just snobbery for you, no reflection on the uni.
Meanwhile...."Happy Hogswatch !".
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Avoiding the Winterval and all the cliched behaviour associated with it...
Perhaps she was ashamed at being turned down by Oxbridge and running scared that her friends (or "friends") would take the p*ss out of her.
Well, *most* of the students are harmless. It's actually the grads and research fellows and stuff that want watching. One was hauled in recently for organising jihad and another nicked a First Edition Shakespeare from the library. It turned up at a sale in America, I think.
One of the attractions for Oxbridge rejects is that there's a sizeable river to row on.
# Posted on December 12th 2008 by nicholas