Christmas comes earlier each year.
In August,last year,I had the surreal experience of walking around Harrod’s Christmas shop in August.
I temporarily froze whilst the rest of Britain collapsed from heatstroke.
Not an experience I would wish to replicate.
One way of disposing of last season’s leftover Christmas cards,I suppose.
This year the problem is even worse.
Mainstream shops are playing “Christmas music” at the start of November.
Six weeks more of this S**t and you’ll need to wheel me away to the asylum in “One flew over the Cuckoos nest” or the one in “Cool Hand Lake.”
Mainstream pop Christmas tunes represent an execretable but lucrative revenue stream for the artists concerned.
In many cases the songs represent the creative nadir of those same artiats.
I am sure that Paul McCartney would not want to be immortalised for “Simply having a wonderful Christmas time.”
I doubt that Sir Elton John would wish to be judged by his “Merry Christmas” ditty.
Despite that both would surely not shun the opportunity to be included on “Now that’s what I call a load of Christmas kack 7.”
Which brings me to the topic of Slades “So here it is Merry Christmas.”
By the standards of Christmas hits it is not bad.However that is not saying a lot.
The problem is that I have heard it every Christmas since it was first released and it grates.
I like Noddy Holder.I do not begrudge him his annual Yuletide pension boost.
However whenever I hear it,in a shop,I want to run screaming from the exit without buying a thing.
If I have picked up anything then it encourages me to put it back.
I am sure that Mr Holder would rather be remembered for the prototype heavy metal band that “Slade” were.
“Come on feel the noize” is a classic of its kind.
I do not like being manipulated for commercial benefit.
If I have to be manipulated then let it be in a classy way.
John Lewis,Sainsbury Marks and Spencer play Crosby,Sinatra,Armstrong or Verve Christmas remixed and I will spend like never before.
Everyone knows there is only one great contemporary Christmas song and that is The Poges and kirsty Mccall”s “Fairy tale of New York.”
At the very least,retail giants,do not play the usual suspects before December 1st and please stop playing them on the 24th December.
Thanking you in anticipation
Yours Sincerely