I don’t know how I’d managed to forget it was on, but I did. So I was quite surprised when I saw it on the box. I just flicked to BBC One and there he was in all his glory, father to the nation, like an old slipper with a chequered inlay. Terry Wogan in high definition. Bless him.
It’s like the one day a year Britain sees him now, he’s like some sort of softly spoken Irish Santa Claus. He was presenting with Tess Daly who as I write this must be nursing a very painful jaw, she’s be smiling even more than usual on tele this weekend; Children in Need and Strictly. Plastered onto her face, she has the expression of a lonely check-in desk worker at the least busiest airport in the world if Brad Pitt came wandering up with his passport.
All in all it was a decent show, from what I saw of it anyway. Most of it is celebrities generously helping to raise money and then there are always those who are just flogging an album. Mastermind was pretty funny, and Strictly was a lot better with Wogan as a judge. I saw some sort of Eastenders and Coronation Street collaboration which wasn’t actually that good at all but it had a funny moment where Gail and some other woman tried to get one over on each other by saying what they’d been though. A clear mickey take of the writers, well executed. The rest was rubbish.
What else was there? I missed the newsreaders do their usual dance about. How did I manage that? I’ll YouTube it…
Yeah it was pretty average, looks like this year they went with a Lady Gaga theme. Nobody dressed up as meat, out of respect for Ross Noble (she really is a thief), instead they dressed as a satellite, a cleaner, a microphone and Storm from X-men. It was pretty average, I think the producers knew this as they literally dressed a random guy as a Direct Line red telephone and pushed him onto the stage! Seriously what’s that all about? It wasn’t that funny to be honest, I think the funniest thing about it is the audience’s obvious fatigue about half way through after clapping along to the music, by the end they were clapping as frequently as it rains in the Sahara.
I did manage to see Doctor Who invite a couple of kids into the Tardis for tea, which just sounds wrong but it was actually a really nice piece. After which they showed a sneak peek at the upcoming Christmas special which I wasn’t interested in until I saw who was in it! Michael Gambon! I love Gambon, he is quality, I don’t know how the producers got him but a congratulations is in order! Welcome to the Layer Cake indeed.
After the Doctor they went off to see what people had been up to in your area, which for me was London as I was watching on BBC HD and I’ll be darned if I’m putting in the effort to change to normal BBC One! There really were lots of people generously fundraising, B&Q giving lots of money, and Pudsey himself working in some sort of warehouse in a high-vis vest! Hang on. Why does he need that? Who’s going to miss him? That’s health and safety gone mad! I mean he’s big and yellow for crying out loud! They should make cyclists dress as Pudsey the bear! That’d help me out a bit as all they seem to wear round here is a helmet with a tiny blinking red light on it!
Whatever, it was all ruined anyway when I saw the loathsome annoyance that is… I can’t actually bring myself to write her name. I’ll give you a clue, she works on Radio 1, she did Top of the Pops and she did a Nintendo DS advert with her mate Holly Willoughby as well. Anyway, she appeared after that so it was time to change channel.
That’s why I missed the newsreaders!
Well it didn’t turn out to be the best idea I’ve ever had anyway as all you do is end up on ITV watching adverts. And yes I’m greeted with the usual DFS advert. Another sale? Wow, who’d have thought it! It’s not the same sodding sale you’ve had all year round is it?! This isn’t even the annoying part. The annoying part is it’s November 19th, 35 days away from December 25th and it‘s a Christmassy advert!
Every year it seems to get earlier and earlier. This year has to be a new record for me. On October 8th I heard a Christmassy advert on the radio. 78 days before the actual day! I’ve no idea what it was about now but yes jingle bells and all that, for crying out loud it’s ages away! It drives me insane! I know people who have their Christmas tree up already! What’s the bloody point? You might as well just leave it up from last year!
That’s all you get, once the calendar flips over from September to October. Christmas thrown in your gormless face like a soggy custard pie. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas, it’s probably the best day ever, even if it isn’t as good as it was when you were a kid. It’s just that I only really start to feel Christmassy a little into December, because, well, that’s when Christmas is! All the promotion and constant barrage of the Pogues just ends up making it anti-climatic rather than the crescendo it’s supposed to be.
I just want to walk into a shop in November and not be treated to Noddy Holder shouting “It’s Chriiiiiiiistmassss!” at me. That’d be nice. And I’d love to turn on the TV without seeing Peter Kay dressing up with the M&S girls at a party with Jamie Redknapp on the decks. Yes, you haven’t read that wrong, it exists. It really does. Well it beats webuyanycar at least. God help us if they make a Christmas advert.
Oh well, it’s not like I have anything to do with deciding when Christmas starts. That’s Coca Cola’s job. This year they have decided upon November 12th to kick of the merriness with their ‘Holidays are coming’ advert. Holidays. What is that about? This isn’t America. We need our own version of it here in Britain where Terry Wogan drives it round wearing a cardigan, no pants and slippers smoking a pipe throwing Boots 3 for 2 deals at people as he drives by. Much more realistic. Oh well, such is life.
Happy Holidays one and all.
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