In my mind swims, perpetually, a plethora of needless knowledge. Like a pendulum of absurdity the facts swing back and forth through the mushy annals of my mind. The colour of these progressively colourless months, likely as a result of interacting with someone greater parts cheese than human, has been recession indicators. I can’t say I have much going in terms of economic knowledge or, as I’m sure this website has demonstrated, knowledge at all - despite this, the irking inkling continues to tug at my subconscious. A list has settled in my mind: increases in underpant prices, surges in lipstick sales, closures of hair salons. Ignoring the unignorable elephant who notes that all my subconscious cares to recall is hair, flair and underwear, the catalogue of impending doom resists neglect. It's distant hum rings and echoes - due most probably to excessive hollowness - slowly, yet surely, transforming what was once an attempt to inform into a pre-recession compulsion to jump off a tall building.
As this year's seasonal recession makes its approach, as welcome as a forsaken brown mark on the aforementioned underpant, it is hard to deny the respective indicators. Urinal congregations, once proud and united, subtly start to disperse, their cohorts cowered and afraid, ashamed of what’s left of their now shrivelled manhoods. Conversations turn suddenly (and thankfully) away from summer sum-up pissing contests to pleasingly more passive yet equally as aggressive energy bill inquiries. Pigeons begin to disappear. All manner of puff and mink emerge as if coordinated. Hot alcohol starts sounding like a good idea. And more, most importantly of all, the Christmas decorations are put up.
Christmas to me, as with most occasions where hierarchy is involved, means sitting on the proverbial sidelines. I watch in awe-full deference as those culinarily superior to me baste the turkey, prime the ham, boil then roast the potatoes, braise the asparagus, blanch the carrots, skim the gravy, and reduce the country’s alcohol reserves. While I may sympathise with the latter, it does somewhat hurt to watch it all occur as I'm reminded of how good my mimosas and mince pies were, particularly when considering the four total ingredients required to make them. Each year I passionately protest my position of patheticism, invoking grand notions of holiday spirit and bonds of familial trust, and each year am reminded of my scrambled egg nog. Which, in my defence, was likely a result of preoccuption with some extremely important reducing duties. It is in these doubtlessly demoralising times that I remind myself what Christmas truly stands for. In our darkest, coldest, shortest days we come together as a society, in defiance of all manner of despair or dread, to shop, gorge, and drown our sorrows as a collective. A tradition with which I am in no position or power to deny; and until that glorious, gluttonous day arrives I will eagerly wait.
My return to London this festive season, although not quite as cognitively recessive as those before it, undeniably marks itself as a step back from Glasgow. A life once spent savagely scouring in search of a seat in the library, only to stay for half an hour before deciding I studied better at home, has become the battle for the biggest biscuit against my 4”2 Kiwi mother (who has been on quite the losing streak). Despite my irrefutable feelings of resentment and unease towards The Feeble Peach, I find it hard to argue (try as I might) that there is somewhere better to be at Christmastime. It is the only period of the year that almost all of London is given a new coat of makeup. People for once appear happy to be alive, anxiously anticipating the impending annual excuse for excessive intoxication. Our irrepressible rage and hatred turns away from one another and smears itself proudly over Ladbaby. We start beginning our days with little chocolatey treats. All the ‘art students’ head to Val Thorens for their prosecco-fuelled snow-infused bi-monthly ski holidays with brother Otto and sister Lala. The Tories retreat to their estates up North, adorned with gilets brimming with glee as they're finally able to take a break from all the hard work they’ve been putting in hiding their affairs. And in true London fashion, we take the knives out of our pockets and put them on our feet.
I couldn’t exactly tell you what it is that makes this city one day wake up and collectively decide it's time to start skating by every Love Actually landmark conceivable. Someone far more logically inclined would possibly note the fact that the coldness, only present in winter, means there is ice and thus that ice skating can occur. Ignoring this largely insufferable person, I can’t shake the belief that if aliens were to arrive on earth tomorrow, after reading our literature, sampling our cuisines, and taking back Jedward, they would see us ice skating and ask ‘what the fuck are those apes doing?’ It is the equivalent of us going to mars and seeing little alien men doing tongue push-ups. Gliding with blades across frozen water is one of those bamboozling activities that repeated practice has had the peculiar effect of normalising and, until the adrenaline fuelled catastrophe that became my family’s attempt at it, I had never appreciated its beauty. Signs of greatness didn’t take long to begin apparating, the sky was sullen and the rain, while not torrential, persisted throughout the grey abyss that became the day. A forecast to which we were completely ignorant until our arrival at what one could vaguely describe as an ice rink, but better classify as a large, cold, over-infested puddle. One by one our forsaken slot of skaters flooded in, each taking their turn at witty exploitative acknowledgements of the obnoxiously unacknowledged state of the already overpriced ice rink. There was a surprising wait, those of us who could sense what was to come wallowed amidst our shared fates in tense silence. We watched patiently, witnessing a pathetic cubed machine fail to improve conditions even remotely until, suddenly, we were released. Desolation ensued. The underpaid workers began deploying the violent red riot-shield skate supports to the seemingly dyspraxic masses, immediately taking the opportunity not only to go as fast as their legs couldn’t skate them, but equally to do so in the wrong direction. Angry fathers clamoured along the cold, soaked ground with their helpless - entirely responsible - children in tow, couples were torn apart, helpers capitulated, royalty free music was played several decibels too loud, and everyone was soaked from sock to knee. It was a Christmas miracle, my skating boots grew 10 times.
The following and final installation of my family’s attempts at sufficiently Christmassy excursions came in the form of a live show. The mention of which would likely invoke potential for a pantomime, or perhaps a showing of A Christmas Carol? However, to my mum who had booked the outing, the appropriate family adventure this Christmas was a midday showing of Moulin Rouge. I can’t quite tell you what I was expecting when leaving the house - as she insisted it be a surprise - but 2 hours of sitting next to my brother as we witnessed sass, ass and class thrown around like a like a ping pong ball at a late night performance in Benidorm wasn’t necessarily on the cards. Despite the chaos of it all, the day had its highlights. My personal favourite, beyond the myriad of sex-infused scenes of sensory domination, was watching my poor sibling's body tense and jitter from head to toe as he eeked out that it wasn’t quite his ‘cup of tea’ at the intermission. After 120 minutes of pure, obscene amazement we scuttled out. It was 2 in the afternoon and we haven't spoken about it since.
Writing this, I remain in recovery from this year’s reducing duties and a sickness of the kind that makes your teeth ache and face go numb with snot. It is in this state I can’t help but reflect. This year has, as all the rest, been one of continued change. The leaves slipped into their crisp autumn coats, one by one peeling away and ultimately arriving at their squishy brown fates. Glasgow’s once coarse, dry ground started to claim lives and forsake prides. Its volatile frost forcing all who encountered it to employ the grotesque winter ‘I really don’t want to fall and embarrass myself’ shuffle. Relationships saw their ends, and many more began. Seasons passed. Boundaries and trends were transcended. Shitty slutty costumes were, once again, allowed to perpetuate their annual embellishments of the sexually repressed rabble (myself included). And more, most importantly of all, the Christmas decorations were put up.
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Merry Christmas,
Happy New Year.
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