Mary Bradley waits at home.

I’ve just heard that the ITV main Christmas film is none other than one of the ubiquitous Harry Potter films; probably Harry Potter and the Tupperware of Doom of something like that. I remember saying pretty much the same thing last year when their “Big Film” was announced that it is a complete waste of television time and the viewing figures for these “blockbusters” must actually be quite small when compared to what other seasonal favourites get in. Is it just me or do TV producers just not realise that serving up cinematic delights such as this simple just do not have the impact that perhaps they did back in the late 70’s. The point is that by the time terrestrial TV get their hands on something like one of the Harry Potter series it’s about 5 or 6 years old and quite simply by this point everyone in the world has seen the damn thing. Even those folk who never set foot inside a cinema must have come across these films on DVD or video by now and again very simply anyone who hasn’t seen it yet isn’t going to be perusing the TV listings on Xmas Day and then leap up to switch on the goggle box when they read that the bloody Potter kid is on.  

I was stating this point of view to the Gashman this morning when he raised one counter argument that does do what a colander doesn’t do, i.e. hold water. Basically he said that there is something enjoyable about watching this sort of televisual treat even if you’ve seen the film a dozen times before as in a perverse form of community spirit you know you’ll probably be watching along with hundreds and thousands of other viewers in a sort of shared cinematic ménage a trois. And to be fair to the skinny rickets ridden fool, just like a sharpened pencil, he has got a point. Just the other week Channel 4 showed the Lord of the Rings trilogy, showing one film every Sunday night for three weeks. On the last week when they showed “The Return of the King” both myself and the Hater of Glasses declared an interest in watching the film, even though we’ve owned the DVDs for many months it wouldn’t have occurred to us to watch the things unless we’d seen the trailers being shown. Just as we were going to settle down to watch it complete with commercial breaks HoG suggested that it might be better to watch the DVD and so miss the interruptions every 15-20 minutes. This, of course, made perfect sense but somehow I felt like I was cheating the system and being somehow wasteful by watching the DVD at the same time the film was being shown on the TV, like leaving a light on in an empty room. 

With the weather generally being dark, gloomy, wet and windy at the moment the daily commute along the A34 is becoming even more fun than usual. It was no surprise then when one morning this week the bright flash of brake lights ahead warned of a traffic snarl up. When we’d crawled up to where the accident had happened there on the verge were two cars and a lorry that’d looked like they’d shunted each other. All the traffic had to merge into one lane to get past and was obviously going at snail’s pace. However stood right next to the one open lane were two blokes, neither of them an official of any sort and one who I presumed from his scruffy demeanour to be the lorry driver, encouraging the traffic to flow past the scene faster by the use of exaggerated arm waving and pointing. Whilst I agree with their sentiments that there was “nothing to see here” they seemed to be completely missing the point that we couldn’t go any faster even if we’d wanted to. But this didn’t dampen their arm waving enthusiasm any and so like a couple of windmills they continued to wave away. 

Has anyone else noticed that probably the most annoying part of going out for a meal with a group of people is the dividing up of the bill bit? Going out last night for HoG’s work’s party was a most enjoyable occasion until the bill arrived. Luckily we avoided the sometimes all too common winging and moaning of the “well I didn’t have a starter and I’m not drinking so I don’t see why I should pay for a split of the drinks bill” type person but what really confused the situation was instead of having good old fashioned cash with which to pay several of the people there wanted to pay with credit cards and then even worse some people had tab cards from the bar and then wanted to add their drinks tab onto the meal bill etc etc. We must have sat their literally for ½ an hour whilst this debacle was sort out. And why to people not involved in the “deal” i.e. not the card holder, the organiser or the restaurant staff get involved? And why do the card holders not get involved but seem quite happy to sit there ignoring the situation whilst someone else tries to explain “well I think they had the pate starter but I’m not sure about drinks………” And why don’t people carry cash anymore? 

Chris Evans, the darling of the airwaves played my very favourite and very most hated Xmas songs back to back tonight. First up we had Elton Twat’s “Step into Christmas” followed by the sublime Jona Lewie “Stop the Cavalry” – Which made me think of my top 5 and bottom 5 Xmas songs, so here we go pop pickers with today’s chart run down.

Thumbs Up -

1. Stop the Cavalry - Jona Lewie

2. Happy Xmas (War is over) - John Lennon

3. In Dulci Jubilo - Mike Oldfield

4. Fairytale of New York - The Pogues with Kirsty McColl

5. Band Aid - Do they know it's Christmas

Thumbs Down -

1. Step into Christmas - Elton John

2. Steps - Their butchering of Slade's "Merry Christmas Everyone"

3. Bing Crosby / David Bowie - Little Bummer Boy

4. The Beach Boys - Little Saint Nick

5. Cliff Richard - Every bloody Xmas song this prick has every released. Actually every song he's every released! Ever!