Fishburn Hedges

15.12.2011 | (1 comment)

Christmas is upon us and, with Parliament going into recess and everyone either heading on holiday or for a few days of hell with their relatives, the media newsflow slows to walking pace. So there tends to be a small number of annually recurring stories that we will…um…welcome.

1: Travel chaos. Last year it was Heathrow Airport. The year before Eurostar. This year it will be another form of transportation that has fallen over just as everyone wants to use it. This will be blamed on the “wrong type of snow” or “leaves on the line” or “lack of preparedness”. The transport organisation will undoubtedly fail to respond in a way that makes the media happy and there will be uncomplimentary comparisons with how things are done in Germany, France, the US, the Cook Islands or wherever is inappropriate. And then a couple of days later an expert will point out that as we live in a temperate climate, it is not economically sensible to spend fortunes preparing for weather conditions that only hit the UK for a couple of days.

2: Christmas number 1. Apparently it's between the X Factor winner Little Mix, and the Army Wives. Somebody old and cynical – like me – will point out that the sales needed to get to the top of the charts these days wouldn’t get you into the Top 30 in the days when we had proper Christmas hits like Slade’s Merry Christmas Everybody, Wizard’s I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day and….er… Wings’ Mull of Kintyre.

3: Hell on the high street. This is a gift that keeps on giving. There will be the following stories:

• Online sales growing while high street shopping dwindles
• Stores starting their sales early (these stories have already started appearing)
• Last-minute rush for Christmas presents
• Queues outside [fill in your store] to get the Boxing Day bargains
• Terrible sales figures from major retailers
• Big retailer going under

4: Major celebrity dies. Sorry to be morbid, but a major celebrity always dies at Christmas. When I worked on newspapers we used to have a sweepstake on who it would be.

5: The Queen’s Speech. Need I say anything more.

6: Who has won the ratings war? This is like trying to predict who will win La Liga in Spain. There’s only two possibilities. In fact it’s even more boring, as the BBC always wins. There's no doubt this year with the Doctor Who Christmas Special, which actually stars the son of a friend of mine. So I’ll be watching.

Have a great festive season.

Posted by Jason Nisse

 

on 22.12.2011

David Brown :-
Good piece but what about the inevitable tragic house fire somewhere in the North of England (cause: faulty fairy lights or burning candle) another bombing atrocity in the now "peaceful" Baghdad and the Pope getting massive applause from touring pilgrims in St Peter's Square for mumbling something incoherent in numerous languages while again ducking the child abuse scandal?