...the batmobile lost a wheel and landed in the hay...

It’s a bad time of year.
Much sadness and grief.
Stress by the bucketload.
Nothing to look forward to except darkness, rain and cold.

As if winter wasn’t bad enough, they had to go and stick Christmas right in the f4cking middle of it.

“What’s wrong with Christmas?” I hear you ask.

Well, nothing really if it’s just a simple case of handing out a few cards and presents to your loved ones and nipping down the local house of worship for an hour or two.
If it was like that, I think I could handle Christmas but, for many, Christmas is lost to the capitalist culture of greed.
For many it’s…
“I’m as rich as French king’s fart” culture
“F4ck the expense! Give the cat a goldfish” culture.
“My kids are going to getter better presents than their mates whether they want them or not” culture.
For others, it’s a matter of conceding to the idea of that culture and parting with enormous amounts of cash that they don’t have.
For some, it’s simply a matter of conceding – giving in to the fact that they know it’s going on around them but they can’t, for whatever reason, be part of it.

It’s all been said innumerable times before by more erudite men than I but Christmas, as we know it, has nothing to do with Jesus or Christianity.
Christmas is the complete antithesis of itself.
Christmas has become a celebration of greed.
Aside from being one big commercial bandwagon, steaming its way down the tracks of consumerism, out of control, with old Nick stoking the fires of excess, Christmas represents the greed in us all.
How very Christian it is to be so discontented with our own cultural version of Christmas that we also have to adopt that of every other Christian country we can think of.
The Scottish or English Christmas that served our parents so well for years isn’t good enough any more. No, we’ve latched onto the German Christmas, the Swedish Christmas, the Spanish Christmas and the American Christmas.
With any semblance of religious celebration lost amid a swirling tornado of tinsel, fairy lights and pageantry that would make even Walt Disney cringe, a religious man could easily be forgiven for thinking that this was the devil’s revenge.

Don’t believe me? Then read on

In the truest of traditions and in homage to America’s latest strumpet, Smiley Virus, here we have the seven things I hate about Christmas.
Greetings pop pickers and welcome to the seasonal countdown of Hooligans Lament’s festive f4ck ups.

Not arf!


7. At number seven, it’s a blast from the past with glitter and bells on…
Christmas Cards

The whole card industry just really pisses me off.
“I say chaps, jolly good idea came to me the other day when I was stealing from the poor, lets go chop down some trees and make some cards with really naff messages in them so that the silly poor people can send them to the friends they see everyday”.
What is it that is so abhorrent about a mass produced piece of shit artwork covered in glitter?
You part with your twenty quid and in return you get a box of anonymous looking, glitter-splattered crap that says absolutely f4ck all. You spend numerous consecutive evenings scribbling muted greetings that say absolutely nothing then you have to sort out who’s still married, who’s divorced, who’s deceased and who’s changed address. By the time you’ve done that you’ve missed the last post to Australia so those get tossed on the fire. You then realise nobody thought to buy stamps. Finally, two days before Christmas, you receive cards from half a dozen people who have skimmed below the radar of your computerized list.
It’s just a total pain in the arse.

For as many years as I can remember, we have opted for the homemade option.
Having an arty sort for a wife, this has always been a better option for us and it does add a personal touch. It does still get a bit impersonal when the inserts and the envelope labels are computer printed.
If I thought I could get away with it, believe me, I’d print my own f4cking stamps as well.

Then there’s the cards you receive. These arrive in such abundance that once the envelopes have been discarded, they just get stuck on the wall without so much as opening them to see who they’re from.
Then you get the one where, among the clutch of cards that arrives through your door, there is a form from the postie. “Sorry but the f4ckwit who tried to send you this forgot to put a stamp on it. If you want to retrieve this or even just find out who the aforementioned butt scratch is, you will have to drive four miles across town then pay us 6 times the postal charge for the pleasure.”
Thing with this is you have no option. The temptation is just to go ‘f4ck it, it’s only a card’ but then you think ‘it might be from an aging relative; it might have money in it’
The postal service knows this of course and sees it as an easy way to make more money out of the unsuspecting punters.

When it comes to impersonal greetings, the good old newsletter takes a fair bit of beating.
It’s right up there with the barbed wire wrapped dog turd.
A once off splurge of conscience cleansing at the keyboard.
Job Done.
Never before have so many words said so little. “I can’t be arsed writing Happy Christmas 120 times so here are the highlights of my exceedingly dull year condensed into a thousand-word essay”.
Only an e-mail saying “can’t be arsed” could be more impersonal.

Well, maybe…

…really, truly, absolutely and totally, the worst of the worst and nestling perfectly on the double top of the dart board of impersonal greetings has to be the mass produced company Christmas card. The one you get from the bank or from the dentist. “Happy Christmas to you and your family. It’s been a wonderful year and I’m really looking forward to receiving all the interest you’re going to have to pay on your seasonal overdraft”
If you’re like me, you never set foot in a bank.
You go to the convenience store four times a week but Mr. Co-op doesn’t send you a card.
You’re on first name terms with the bus driver but he doesn’t send you a card.
You’re even more familiar with the total strangers you pass in the street every day. No cards!
So why the f4ck is your bank manager sending you a Christmas card?

Intermission time.
Hang out…

The Kinks – Rainbow Theatre, Christmas Concert 1977
http://rapidshare.com/files/175672977/Rainbow_Theatre__Christmas_Concert_1977.rar

Elliott Smith - Roseland Theatre 10.11.2000
http://rapidshare.com/files/175684641/Roseland_Theatre_10.11.2000.rar

Silver Sun Pickups – Acoustic Set
http://rapidshare.com/files/175687628/SilverSun_Pickups_Acoustic_Set.rar

Jayhawks – Rainy Day Music
http://rapidshare.com/files/175693553/Jayhawks_-_Rainy_Day_Music_.rar

Patrik Fitzgerald - Gifts & Telegrams / Tonight EP
http://rapidshare.com/files/175640144/patrik_fitzgerald.rar

Peter Gabriel & Friends – Big Blue Ball
http://rapidshare.com/files/175648294/Peter_Gabriel___Friends_-_Big_Blue_Ball__2008_.rar

Flesh For Lulu – Big Fun City & Blue Sisters Swing
http://rapidshare.com/files/175828764/Big_Fun_City___Blue_Sisters_Swing.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/175837150/Big_Fun_City___Blue_Sisters_Swing_2.rar


6. At number six it’s our other national sport…
Shopping

Don’t we just love it?
There’s nothing like a bit of retail therapy to blast away those autumn cobwebs and get the serotonin flowing.
This of course, is all well and good until you introduce a little bit of a competitive edge. Once you’re lined up at the door with a hundred other shoppers it’s like the starting grid of Wacky Races.

Darstarly, Muttley, Professor Pat Pending, Penelope Pitsop and the Ant Hill Mob.
They’re all there, all vying for that elusive toy of the year.
They’ll stop at nothing to get there before you and no manner of warfare is going to get them or you there before the sweet old granny with the Zimmer frame and the brolly.
Last year there was one Nintendo Wii to share between every thousand shoppers.
What the hell is that all about?
Why does everyone get so stressed about getting the must have toy of the year?
Come Boxing Day they’re giving them away with free Cliff Richard CDs and a blow up reindeer.

And why do they start with all the tinsel and glittery shit so early?
There’s nothing more likely than a November display of glitter and fake snow to have the sane minded running like banshees from the High Street.
Greed. That is the only reason.
Let’s bleed the saps dry.
Let’s get them in early, spend their cash. By the time December comes around they’ll all come back and do it again.

There is of course the self-gratification of those smart asrses who have been busy squirreling away little swag bags since January. Nothing annoying there then, is there?
At least there wouldn’t be if they’d just keep it to themselves but oh no, they have to rub everyone’s nose in it.
Smug bastards.

Similarly, I can never understand why some people leave it so late.
Surely they can’t all be tight f4ckers looking for a last minute bargain.
All of this though is of relative insignificance to me.
The thing that really gets me pissed about shopping is other people’s ignorance.
The way just because its raining and they’re 120 years of age, old ladies feel they have the right to barge up and down the pavements with their brollies at eye level, gouging out the eyes of everything in their path.
The way all the old geezers huddle in the shop doorways amid a cloud of smoke, toking on their Woodbines, while their missus does a trolley dash round her favourite department store.
The way people gather in huddles in the middle of the aisle shooting a load of crap about how bad the weather is and how busy it is.
The way they cluster round the doorways while they wrapping half a dozen scarves round their wizened necks, stopping anyone getting in or out – f4ck off home gramps, it’s nice and peaceful there and perfectly cosy with your government heating grant.
They way ladies of a certain girth have a habit of occupying the centre of the aisle so that nobody can get past. Just as they veer to one side and you see a gap, their in built radar kicks in and they swerve to the other side.
The way mothers of preschool children take them in to town on a Saturday just so they can wail at 90 decibels and annoy the shit out of the normal working people who have no choice but to shop on a Saturday.

If I had my way, the government would pass the Inconsiderate Consumers Act forcing all of these people to apply for a licence granting them access to shops only on a Wednesday.
No, its not the shopping I hate, it’s the shoppers.

This year though, I’ve managed to do a huge chunk of mine sitting in this very spot.
Yes, Internet shopping certainly beats the forty-minute queue just to get into the multi storey car park.
This of course makes me exactly the smug, pain in the arse type of bastard that I was referring to earlier and the scourge of anyone who still has to battle their way through the crowds.
Oh well! Life’s a bitch and then you have to eat brussel sprouts and squirrel brains.


5. Down three to number five in our festive fist off, where would we be without it…
it’s Television

I know, I know! I’ve said so many times how much I hate TV but Christmas is different. Christmas is the one time of year when there is the faintest glimmer of a chance that my payment to Sky might not be wasted. The expectation is high.
I might be able to enjoy sociable evenings quaffing port and munching on roasted nuts while enjoying some good old-fashioned family entertainment.
The handful of sand in that particular tub of Vaseline is, quite obviously, the fact that good old family entertainment is shite. An evening in front of the TV invariably lands up in me being outvoted so even if there was something good on, I’d end up watching shite anyway.
Then there are the ads.
Richard the Hamster heading off to the North Pole with his list of ‘I wants’, presumably the vital ingredients for some ‘Real Christmas’, then hauling round his pack of huskies to head home to Morrison’s, takes a bit of believing. I guess the fact that he got ¾ a million quid for it makes it believable enough for him.
Old croon-meister, Des O’Connor’s Tesco offering was only partially amusing the first time but after seeing it twelve times a night you feel like taking all those big red circles and wedging them up his arse.
Taking the proverbial biscuit, topped off with more than just a hint of smarm, has to be Marks and Spencer.
It’s not just Christmas it M&S Christmas.
F4ck off you bunch of self-satisfied bastards. Nobody with half a set of smarts is going to set foot in M&S at Christmas for fear of getting trampled by the blue rinse brigade as they battle their way to get the last of the ‘not just smoked salmon but Finest Scottish hot smoked salmon with single malt whisky and cracked peppercorns’ and the ‘not just any old Christmas pud but the Ultimate Christmas pudding laced with finest French cognac’.
Aaaargh!
Then we get old what’s-his-puss out of Boyzone, Twiggy, Kerry Fatstuff, various members of Take That and the Redknapps all portraying their various versions of the great family Christmas.
Bollocks. Who are they trying to kid?
Christmas just isn’t like that.
Christmas isn’t all pristine spotless homes and perfectly groomed bodies to match.
Christmas morning, I look like Albert Steptoe on a bad day and the house looks like his yard after it’s been savaged by a pack of Rottweilers.

Of course there’s always a good selection of movies to be had.
Well yes, if you like watching the same old tosh they offer up every other year.
The Santa Clause! The Grinch! A Christmas Tale! It’s A Wonderful Life!
Even Scrooged, with its rehash of Dickens’ “mean guy learns it’s better to be nice” parable, is way past it’s best.
Come on guys. We all know this is not going to happen and it’s certainly not going to restore our faith in humankind. If it could we wouldn’t have had Hitler, Khomeini and Saddam.
If, like me, you don’t like the movies on offer and can’t convince the family that Apocalypse Now is a spiffing yarn about the Griswalds’ Asian vacation, there’s always that last great bastion of true Britishness – the top 100 crap clips of whatever crap they could think of that was exactly same as the last lot of crap but in a slightly different order as voted for by…
…well, by the editor really.
Nobody seriously believes these things are polled. If they were, we’d have been asked.

So, if you’re lucky, it’ll be the top 100 movies wherein you’ll see condensed versions of all of the above and save yourself the balls-ache of having to watch them all from start to finish.


4. A non-mover at number four…
The tree.

In our household we’ve always had a real tree.
I take the argument that its not good for the environment cutting down a living thing, hanging a load of sparkly crap on it for a fortnight then tossing it into the street but then you could say the same about all the potatoes, carrots and sprouts that get wasted. They were living things. And what about poor old goosey goosey gander?
Besides, our tree always comes from a sustainable source and it always goes on the fire when it’s done.
Burning waste wood is carbon neutral. Manufacturing a plastic tree sure as f4ck is not, plus they look like shit. Yes, they can be kept year after year but in our house, that just means ending up as bedding for the uninvited rodent populous.
Maybe those who advocate artificial trees will be having an artificial turkey as well and maybe some polystyrene sprouts so they can use them year after year.
The thing with all this artificial plastic shit is that it just doesn’t go away.
You can shred it, you can wrap it in polythene, you can bury it and you can incinerate it.
End of the game it’s always the same result -
Pollution 2 Environment 0

I guess if I look at the psychology of this, the deep-seated despising of artificial trees has nothing to do with the environment. As with everything, it reaches bank to my childhood, when we never had a real tree.
So there you have it.
Real tree for the Hoolis!

Nominally, this is bought from the local garden centre’s sustainable plantation on the last weekend before the week leading up to Christmas. This year, under great pressure from everyone else in the family, it was bought two weeks early.
“We’ve barely packed away the Halloween stuff,” I protested but to no avail.
“It’ll be nothing but a skeletal bunch of twigs by Hogmanay,” I protested. Again to no avail.
At times, it’s easier just to give in then gloat when you’re proved right. This is something I’m truly professional at having studied the rubbing of salt into wounds at great length, achieving diploma standard in smug self-satisfaction.
The needles are falling already! I will have my moment of glory!! Victory will me mine!!!


Musical intermission 2.
Zone out…

The Decemberists – Live from SoHo (iTunes_Exclusive) EP
http://rapidshare.com/files/175409898/The_Decemberists_-_Live_from_SoHo__iTunes_Exclusive__EP.rar

Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Live, Birmingham, AL, 26.04.2008
http://rapidshare.com/files/175774256/Live__Birmingham__AL__26.04.2008.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/175781730/Live__Birmingham__AL__26.04.2008_2.rar

Manu Chao – Estacion Mexico
http://rapidshare.com/files/175804497/Manu.Chao-Estacion.Mexico.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/175811055/Manu.Chao-Estacion.Mexico_CD_2.rar

The Silencers – A Blues For Buddha
http://rapidshare.com/files/175482114/The_Silencers-A_Blues_For_Buddha.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/175490869/The_Silencers-A_Blues_For_Buddha_2.rar

10000 Maniacs – The Whishing Chair
http://rapidshare.com/files/175502568/The_Whishing_Chair.rar

Big Country – Under Cover
http://rapidshare.com/files/175507252/Under_Cover.rar

The Delgados – Universal Audio
http://rapidshare.com/files/175514431/Universal_Audio.rar

The Reindeer Section - Son Of Evil Reindeer
http://rapidshare.com/files/175582130/Son_Of_Evil_Reindeer.rar

The New Amsterdams - Story Like A Scar
http://rapidshare.com/files/175587261/Story_Like_A_Scar.rar


3. Climbing three places from last year the last line in good taste…
Some good old festive fun at the Works party

Simple one this.
I simply opt out.

Work is bad enough when you have to go there to work.
No manner of inducement is going to convince me that I want to spend an evening being sociable with my colleagues.
Call me Nommy no mates if you wish but I’d rather stay at home and watch some good old family entertainment on the telly.
The trouble with the works do is that when the drink is in, the wit is most definitely out.
Now that’s all well and good when you’re with total strangers. You’ll never see them again.
When you’re with your mates or your closest friends, they know what you’re really like and will forgive you anyway. Any misdemeanours serve to build up the legends that long standing friendships are made of.
But your colleagues?
Just remember, you have to go back to work on Monday.
Besides, someone always gets totally snottered and makes a pass at someone else. Usually, this will result in only a drunken fumble and much slobbering in a toilet cubicle next to the one containing the office junior giving it the big boak.
It doesn’t even generate enough excitement to be worth gossiping about.
Someone else gets equally snottered and disengages their mouth from any sensible controlling influence. This results in either the boss getting slagged off by all and sundry or the department bully seizing the opportunity to embarrass some poor assailable victim by spilling some kind of guilty secrets involving a sheep, a salami and a gimp mask.

As if that wasn’t enough to taunt the sane, then there’s Secret Santa.
Will someone please explain to me what the f4ck that is all about?
Secret f4cking Santa. I ask you.
Everybody knows it’s a set up.
It’s only a secret for the gullible few who are unfortunate enough to be last to pick the names out of the hat.
All that’s left are the oiks and the boss.

Once all that’s over with you have some tasteless oriental buffet and pints of lager that taste like yak’s piss.
After that, the party generally breaks off into little splinter groups, some of which then convene at a so-called nightclub with a late licence and a twenty quid entrance fee.
The music is so loud and incomprehensible that it feels like you’ve got your head in one of those steam hammer things out of an iron foundry and eventually, at 3am when you head out to get a taxi, you realise, to your ultimate horror, that you’ve no cash left.
You try, within the confines of your drunken stupor, to hatch a plot so cunning it wears a handle bar moustache and carries the nickname ‘weasel’ but, in the end, you concede to the fact that you’ve had so many tequila slammers and your brain is so f4cked that, even supposing you stuffed a load of feathers up your arse and changed your name to Doris the chicken, you couldn’t manage to hatch an egg.


After a three-hour walk home you’re so dejected you swear you’ll never do it again.
You fall asleep in the loo and wake up with a mouth full of feathers at 6am on Monday morning.
Just in time to go back to work.

Lost Weekend?
Never mind all that Lloyd Cole nonsense.
He hadn’t been to Amsterdam; he’d been to the office party.


2. Down from last years top spot…
Good taste all around with Christmas songs

Bollocks.
Just plain bollocks.
Why bother?
The X factor has already bought the rights to the Christmas number one and besides, nobody cares what’s number one on Christmas Day.
I mean, it’s not exactly life changing is it? It’s not a truly pivotal moment in one’s life like say, realising you have an unknown brother or finding out your real parents were from Mars.
I often wonder how they write those songs. You know, the way like say, Bob Dylan or Tom Waits would craft a song out of slices of life or maybe true emotional surges. Does that work if you’re trying to write some slushy pish about reindeer and holly. Just dig deep into that subconscious. Think of Christmas past.
“ Oh plastic tree Oh plastic tree, na na na naaah na plastic tree…”

Nah, f4ck it.
Christmas songs are for church and carol singers in old folks’ homes.
That’s where they belong.
That’s where they should stay.
I do actually remember a session, carol singing as a child in Glasgow, which culminated in a gathering at the local church where upon we were served paper cups filled with turtle soup. This, of course wasn’t real turtle soup but, for me it might as well have been ‘all the Disney characters rolled into one and stewed with veg to a hearty broth’.
Had I turned out to be a vegetarian, this would indeed have been the pivotal moment.
A catalyst.
Fortunately for my stomach I’m a fickle creature but, if nothing else, it put me off Christmas songs for life.
I do, however, remember Edinburgh comedian and actor Bill Barclay once recorded an alcohol based version of the Twelve days…
“On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me a wee heavy and a half pint”
This would be my tenet for the years to come.

Get it here...
Various Artists - The Alternative Christmas Album
http://rapidshare.com/files/175900709/Bah_Humbug.zip

Intermission number 3.
Rock out…

Led Zeppelin – Whiskey A Go Go
http://rapidshare.com/files/175528374/Whiskey_A_Go_Go.rar

The Raconteurs 2nd May 2008 – Stubbs BBQ - Austin, TX.
http://rapidshare.com/files/175441723/The_Raconteurs_2008.05.02_-_Stubbs_BBQ_-_Austin__TX.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/175453698/The_Raconteurs_2008.05.02_-_Stubbs_BBQ_-_Austin__TX_2.rar

Foo Fighters - Late! - Pocketwatch
http://rapidshare.com/files/175696460/Late__-_Pocketwatch.rar

Kings of Leon - Berlin, Germany – Columbiahalle, 07.01.2007
http://rapidshare.com/files/175820974/Berlin__Germany_-_Columbiahalle__07_01_2007_.rar

White Stripes – Live in Paris 11.06.2007
http://rapidshare.com/files/175541312/White_Stripes_Live_in_Paris_2007-6-11.rar

Garbage - Live Minneapolis, USA (7th St. Entry) 05.11.1995
http://rapidshare.com/files/175762062/Live_Minneapolis__USA__7th_St._Entry__05.11.1995.rar

Morning Runner - Wilderness Is Paradise Now
http://rapidshare.com/files/175549215/Wilderness_Is_Paradise_Now.rar

Queens Of The Stone Age – T in the park, Scotland 7.10.2005
http://rapidshare.com/files/175563605/T_in_the_park__Scotland_7.10.2005.rar

Lynyrd Skynyrd – Asbury Park NJ.
http://rapidshare.com/files/175576216/skynlynyrdAsburyParkNJ71377.rar


1. Straight in at number one. For the first time ever, it’s…
Christmas Presents.

Aside from the expense, the whole idea of presents should be easy.
Just don’t fall into that ‘you don’t have to get me anything’ trap. That whole scenario is fraught with disaster and, if seen through to fruition, will almost certainly lead to estrangement, divorce or a slow and agonising death by food poisoning and the skewering of ones testicles with knitting needles.

So, that said, you ideally find something the intended recipient would like; you buy it, wrap it then hand it over.

In reality, it’s probably more a case of hunting for days on end through the shops for that elusive designer watch and eventually having to settle either for the one that’s on display or the next model up, which just happens to be £200 more expensive.
It’s only once a year so you hand over your 500 groats or chosen form of plastic, take advantage of the free gift wrapping service and move on.
You get home with your stash and conceal it in your secret hiding place where weeks later, after having to undergo hypnotherapy and regression treatment to remember exactly where this secret hiding place is, you find mice have beaten you to it and eaten their way through all the free gift wrapping.
Demoralised, you sit up to 3am accompanied only by a bottle of whisky, surrounded by wrapping paper, sticky tape, scissors and ribbon, trying to recreate the masterful touch the sales assistant displayed. You end up with something that looks like it’s been run over by a truck then chewed by a goat.
‘Never mind’ you think – it’s the thought that counts.
Come Christmas morning, you sidle up to your loved one, all slushy and romantic, and hand over their gift.
“What the f4ck! Did you steal this from next-door’s goat?” is their only response.

Kids, being more gullible, are infinitely easier.
They know what they want for a start.
If you take that statement figuratively, it’s fine but what I really mean is for it to be taken literally.
It’s true, kids know what they want and will certainly not have any problem in telling you.
This is fine in November but by the time the holidays begin, their heads have been filled with so much nonsense from the full on advertising assault of December that they have changed their minds at least five times.
If you had all the marketing skills of the Cartoon Network you could convince them that they want exactly what you have bought them but sadly this is not the case and you will have to forgo any kind of fun just to ensure that little Timmy and Mantha get the latest PS3, ‘lets eat grandma while we shoot the shit out of some alien, vampire, terrorist, muthas’ game.

Then there’s the rellies.
All the brothers, sisters, parents, and in-laws.
Not as easy as the kids but less likely to change their mind.
You want to give them something nice, something different and something classy but you don’t want to spend a fortune.
You don’t want their gift to you to totally outclass your gift to them nor do you want to face a similarly embarrassing reversal of fortunes.
And what about all the nieces and nephews? How do you balance that one out?
Do you let your head rule proceedings and err on the side of fairness or are you lead by your heart and give freely to your favourites.
When do you stop?
How do you stop?

Then of course, there’s the whole receiving business.
Trying to remain gracious when you’ve just been given the same gift as last year or a sweater with a three-dimensional Rudolf emblazoned across the chest.
OK, I know I stole that one from Bridget Jones’ Diary but it does happen.

The thing I really hate about all this is the way giving a present to someone on Christmas day or on a birthday, just in the same way as giving flowers on Valentine’s Day, is seen to somehow preclude you from giving a present at any other time. As if you’ve fulfilled your moral obligation.

Friends of mine have this great idea where they give each other a donation to a charitable cause. I wish I had the resolve to go ahead with that.

So what’s it to be this year?
Well I guess it’ll be the same old story.

Hard as I might try, every year swearing I won’t spend as much on presents, by the time January comes around, the final bill hits some new, previously unattained pinnacle of despair.
In spite of that and any resolve to tone things down, we will, like numerous other families, fall into the capitalist culture trap.
This year at least, it appears that the kids have rumbled Santa.
At least that will save their mother buying all manner of odd shaped things that would then have to be rammed into a pair of elongated socks that the Grinch left behind.
Ha! That’s what I thought.
There is no escape and things have reached the point where it’s now easier just to give in than to fight against the bad things.
The trouble with Christmas is that there are so many bad things about it that it’s hard to enjoy it for what it is. Even if you can just accept all the crap there’s still the huge guilt trip that gazes out from beneath the tree or that peeks out from behind the gargantuan feast that would make Desperate Dan blush.



So anyway, you know how it all goes, I don’t really like charts or lists.
One of the reasons for that is the fact that I always feel there’s something missing.
So, in honour of that, and the fact that 8 things etc. didn’t fit with the Miley Cyrus gag, here it is, my real number one, the thing that pisses me off most about the whole shoddy affair, more than shopping, more than TV or Christmas songs. More than Cliff Richard or Noel F4cking Edmonds. More than the Grinch and Ebeneezer Effin Scrooge, it’s the great British Roast Turkey Christmas Dinner

As I said, a gargantuan feast.
It started with the humble little chicken. Before long we we’re being told by our darling foodies that for the great British Christmas dinner, we have to have Goose but then, that’s not big enough so we adopt the great American tradition of roasting a turkey. Now though, even that isn’t good enough. Not for our sophisticated European palette.
Now our modern cheffy types are telling us we have to have the combined flavours of roast turkey, goose and duck.
What weird manner of beast is this you ask?
Has Gordon Ramsay been taking lessons from Frankenstein?
Well, no. It’s quite simple really.
You have one of each.
Stuff one inside the other.
My old ‘pal’ Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall was on telly the other week waxing lyrical about some olde-worlde recipe that was like something out of the old lady who swallowed the fly. Take something like a quail, stick it inside a woodcock and repeat the process with a pigeon, a guinea fowl, a pheasant, a chicken, a goose and a turkey.
Top the whole thing off by ramming it all up an ostriches’ arse.
There you have it.
All the gargantuan excess and decadence you could wish for.
Roast menagerie a la Monsieur Creosote.
Why kill one bird when you can kill a dozen.
Add to all of that 10 kilos of roast potatoes, cooked in goose fat of course, 5 kilos each of carrots, parsnips and sausages, 50 rashers of bacon and pile of sprouts with squirrel brains disguised as chestnuts fit to choke a giraffe. All of this of course, has to be topped off with cranberry sauce, gravy and the obligatory sprinkling of fresh rosemary, thyme and ginger.

Oh, and don’t forget the Christmas pudding and the mincemeat pies.


The perfect recipe for a gastronomic explosion!


Never mind though, there’s always New Year to look forward to.

And finally,
Chill out…


The Beta Band - Live At The Shepherd's Bush Empire
http://rapidshare.com/files/175704274/Live_At_The_Shepherd_s_Bush_Empire.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/175712596/Live_At_The_Shepherd_s_Bush_Empire_2.rar

The Aliens – Luna
http://rapidshare.com/files/175795632/Luna_-_2008.rar

Ray LaMontagne - OLS Sessions
http://rapidshare.com/files/175626426/OLS_Sessions.rar

Port O'Brien – The Wind and The Swell
http://rapidshare.com/files/175657147/Port_O_Brien_-_The_Wind_and_The_Swell.rar

Rab Noakes – Demos + Rarities
http://rapidshare.com/files/175667000/Rab_Noakes_-_Demos_Rarities__UK_.rar

M. Ward – Post War
http://rapidshare.com/files/175660867/Post-War.rar

The Divine Comedy - Black Session (Live in France 2004)
http://rapidshare.com/files/175848602/Black_Session__Live_in_France_2004_.rar

The Last Shadow Puppets Live BBC Electric Proms
http://rapidshare.com/files/175420570/The_Last_Shadow_Puppets_Live_BBC_Electric_Proms.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/175429002/The_Last_Shadow_Puppets_Live_BBC_Electric_Proms_2.rar

Scott Walker – Classics & Collectibles http://rapidshare.com/files/175874412/Classics___Collectibles_1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/175887924/Classics___Collectibles_2.rar


And finally, finally…
The first batch of re-uploads…

Counting Crows – Shim Sham 2001
http://rapidshare.com/files/175322984/Sim_Sham_2001_1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/175315424/Shim_Sham_2001_2.rar

The Sea Urchins – Stardust
http://rapidshare.com/files/175330452/Stardust.rar

The Big Dish – Swimmer
http://rapidshare.com/files/175337706/Swimmer.rar

My Life Story – The Golden Mile
http://rapidshare.com/files/175342891/The_Golden_Mile.rar

Wipers – Youth of America
http://rapidshare.com/files/175346409/Wipers.rar

Warren Zevon – Barrymore Theater, Madison 22.11.1999
http://rapidshare.com/files/175349216/Barrymore_Theater__Madison_22.11.1999.rar

The Doors – Isle of Wight Festival
http://rapidshare.com/files/175353418/Isle_Of_Wight_Festival.rar

The Go Betweens – Liberty Belle And The Black Diamond Express
http://rapidshare.com/files/175359303/Liberty_Belle_And_The_Black_Diamond_Express.rar

The Icicle Works – Live At Reading, 28.08.1987
http://rapidshare.com/files/175364853/Live_At_Reading__28.08.1987.rar

R.E.M – Live In Hyde Park, London, 16.07.2005
http://rapidshare.com/files/175369379/Live_In_Hyde_Park__London__16.07.2005.rar

Noel Gallagher - Paris, France, 28.11.2006
http://rapidshare.com/files/175375963/Noel_Gallagher_Paris__France__28.11.2006.rar

Rockpile – Provoked Beyond Endurance
http://rapidshare.com/files/175380793/Provoked_Beyond_Endurance.rar


Happy Christmas & Happy Holidays to all.



Enjoy…


Hooli