How Hard Can It Be_ - Jeremy Clarkson [113]
It’s the same story with the nativity. The virgin birth. The wise men. This is where Boney M went wrong. One minute, they were singing about an extraordinary figure from the Russian revolution. And the next, about a bunch of shepherds who came down from the hills to find a bloke in a stable explaining that his wife had just given birth to the son of God. Basing songs on goblins and mystical figures in the woods is fine in prog rock and in the primary-school classroom. But in the mainstream? On the radio? Over your breakfast? No.
It’s why I was glad when Bob Geldof and Midge Ure blasted their Band Aid hit into our consciousness. Because this was not a song about the baby Jesus or some fat bloke on a sleigh. It was about how we should feel towards others over the Christmas period. Which is somehow a bit more relevant.
Weirdly, and I’m not admitting to liking it, Cliff Richard achieved the same sort of thing with his hit ‘Mistletoe and Wine’.
The trouble is that if we’d continued down this route, Christmas songs would have stopped being happy and bouncy. They’d have become hectoring. Pretty soon, we’d have ended up with Muse urging us to buy the Big Issue and Kasabian asking us to share our turkey with a tramp. Nobody wants that sort of nonsense when we’re cruising the streets looking for a Go Go Hamster.
And that’s why we should all be grateful to Cowell’s karaoke competition. Because the winner’s guaranteed Christmas No 1 is also guaranteed not to be about Christmas.
Sunday 13 December 2009
The BA strike is off – so that’s many a Christmas ruined
I can’t believe that British Airways’ cabin crew thought it might be a good idea to go on strike. It seems so old-fashioned. Like banging the side of your television to stop the picture juddering, or getting a new penny in your Christmas stocking.
I remember well my first day at work. I walked through the door, turned round and went on strike. I had no idea why. But it didn’t seem unusual in the least. Back in 1978, no one ever actually went inside their office or factory. They stood outside, round a brazier, throwing stones at policemen for amusement.
I suppose we were all a lot stupider in those days, unwise in the ways of the world. We didn’t realize that if the company that employed us to stand outside all day had lost £400m the previous year, it couldn’t very well afford to give us all a 3,000 per cent pay rise and some scented logs for the brazier. That’s why I was so amazed about the BA nonsense. I can’t imagine for a minute that those pretty boys who point at doors for a living wanted to spend their Christmas break in donkey jackets, chanting: ‘Willie, Willie, Willie. Out, out, out.’ They might have thought it’d be nostalgic and fun to throw a stone at a policeman and call a pilot a scab. But if they’d all turned up for picket-line duty in their Audi TTs – the car of choice for cabin crew – I doubt they would have got many honks of support from passing motorists. They’d have just been rather cold and bored.
Of course, the courts decided on Thursday that you can’t really go on strike in 2009, any more than you can beat your whippet to death with a burning effigy of Margaret Thatcher. And this, I’m sure, will be a great relief to the many thousands of people who were looking forward to a bit of sunshine over the yuletide break. Strangely, though, I don’t see why … I once went away for Christmas and it was terrible, because not only do you have to pack all the usual assortment of holiday rubbish – shorts, sun cream and 8,500 battery chargers – but also you have to think about all the presents you’ll be handing out on Christmas morning. Packing is already the worst thing in the world – after being executed, and trying on a pair of trousers in a shop – but when you also have to pack the chrysanthemums you bought as a present for your wife from