298: What??!*?

What has been going on this week.  The world has gone mad.  It was something called Christmas.  We had lots of little envelopes tumbling through the letter-box bearing greetings cards - and it was nobody's birthday.

Programmes on the TV went wild.  Every one was described by the continuity announcers as 'festive' and the amount of cheering and whooping dubbed onto the soundtrack was doubled or trebled.  Even classic programmes were shoehorned into this festive mould even if it was just a few pieces of tinsel on the set.  (What does tinsel convey?)

On Thursday things turned from bad to worse.  Most programmes were replaced by 'festive films' or 'Christmas specials'. .ntroductions got longer, jokes got sillier and every one was keen to show they were having a good time.

According to the publicity and programme content, (and confirmed by the experience in our house) everyone was eating turkey 'with all the trimmings'.  This involved far too many vegetables and especially too many Brussels sprouts whose odour is repulsive and taste is suspiciously unlike food.  Why do people eat such awful foodstuffs?

Most people (again confirmed by my own experience) then play games and eat chocolates (though I'm not allowed these since they are poisonous to dogs).

Just as I settled down for a well-earned rest (as were the human beans judging by the lower level of volume coming out of the room housing the games-players), the doorbell rang and in came …. people I had never seen before in my short life.  From the greetings (more shouts ands whoops (just like the telly) they were not absolutists - they were relatives, though not ones of which I was aware.  One of them lives (temporarily I gather) in Pakistan and his girlfriend was from Azerbaijan (if that's a real place).  The third (most senior) person was from Norfolk (if that's a real place).

The food table had to be reloaded and all the Christmas songs had to be replayed.

Since Thursday, there are signs that the world is returning to normal -the world is becoming less festive and we can, thankfully, all havre less 'fun'.

Anyway, I have to go - I'm having a luncheon of turkey and mince pie (no sprouts).