GOD ROT YE MERRY GENTLEMEN

Did you have a good Christmas? If one more person asks me that question, I swear to God I’ll smack the bastard, the bastard that is, not God. By the time the big day arrived, I was ready to go thirteen rounds with fate.

I know it was supposed to be the season of goodwill, but there is only so much false bonhomie a body can take, and as they started selling Christmas decorations on Oxford Street back in August, I was thoroughly sick of the festive season by the first of October. Who wouldn’t be.

It wasn’t only decorations which were being flogged to death well ahead of schedule. Mince pies, Christmas cake and puddings, all were available by late October with best before dates for the first week in November, which meant they had to be eaten there and then, by the twenty fifth of December, I could not have eaten another mince pie without the risk of throwing up.

Don’t worry my dears, things get worse. Remember, this is me we are talking about, not Santa, and I have no elves as helpers, if I had then I would throttle the little perishers as an affirmation of my attitude to Christmas past, present and future. Now we all know Yuletide can be expensive, not if you are broke it isn’t, and I was as broke as broke can be and still remain breathing. My bank kept on sending payments made into my account back to their place of origin, not once, not twice, but three bloody times. Not content with stuffing up the World’s economy, they thought they’d have a go at mine while they were at it. Charmant. Tres charmant.

Despite being sick of traditional festive fayre, I felt bit incumbent on me to get in some cake for the big day, not having much in the way of spondulicks, I was forced to settle for a slab of the cheapest muck I could lay my hands on. Muck is the operative word here. I do not know if it was the cake itself, the icing or the marzipan, but whatever it was, it gave me the squirts, I hadn’t farted so much since I went on the cabbage diet.

Now do not, I beg of you, despair, there is more to come, oh yes indeedie. Christmas Eve I flicked the lights on and the fuse blew, I spent the entire festival with a frigging candle as my only illumination. I can hear you now, how Dickensian, how romantic, huh! You try having a crap while holding a candle. Dear God, I take my hat of to Scrooge, the old sod had it right the first time. HUMBUG.

Christmas, don’t get me started, I have lived with it since August. I was so relieved on the twenty seventh of December, when finally it was all over, and the shops started selling Easter eggs.