It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like...

          It’s beginning to look a lot like (let’s postpone everything until after) Christmas. In my view, it’s premature and brought about by the early onset of seasonal muzak, worming its way into our consciousness and brainwashing us into thinking that the time is nigh.

          Normal service has been suspended. I’ve been trying for a week to persuade the plumber to come, but all I get is intermittent texts citing the “must be finished by Christmas” rush as an excuse. A monthly board meeting is skipped because it falls within a week of the hallowed day. When I turned up for the mass bike-ride that takes place on the first Sunday of each month, there were only two others there, considerably fewer than the 120 that had gathered on a fine day in June. We three stalwarts blamed the poor showing on a miserable weather outlook, but I suspect that Santa-fever played its part because, after agreeing to abandon the ride, we went home via the city-centre and saw that the festive-light-adorned streets were thronged with shoppers.

          Perhaps the same explanation applies to what happened on Tuesday at the regular meeting of the University of the Third Age discussion group. Attendance, at best, is eight, but on this occasion we were four – and one of that number was new to the group. Still, having made the effort to show up, we dug into our chosen topic, Civil Disobedience: are there circumstances under which you would agree to it? The answer was a unanimous “yes”. In fact, the speed with which consensus emerged meant that we had time to branch out into the degrees of disobedience we might condone and the arguments surrounding means justifying ends. We were beginning to run out of steam, when our new member pointed out that we are all left-leaning liberals and that we needed someone to toss in a right-wing point of view – which he duly did. But his heart wasn’t in it, so we retired early, whereupon it was agreed that the next meeting would fall too close to the 25^th to be viable and that we would reconvene in January instead.

          With all this extra time on my hands, I’ve been catching up on culture – in particular, a couple of ‘classic’ films I had never seen, Serpico (1973), a quintessential tale of cop-corruption in New York and The Pumpkin Eater (1964), a love story set in a monied London milieu. On reflexion, whether this can be called “catching up” is a moot point. Given that I have lived through those eras and, therefore, identified with them fondly all through both films, was I merely wallowing in nostalgia? Maybe so, especially if, as I suspect, the older we get the more inclined we are to live in the past, which is where I’m sure the younger generations see us as belonging – a not unreasonable viewpoint. But there’s a voice inside me that says, “I’m not done yet!” Video gaming is a step too far but, having read an assertion that Beyoncé is the greatest entertainer of all time, I made a point of ‘catching-up’ with some of her stuff on YouTube. It took less than five minutes for me to reach my verdict: if that’s entertainment, then I’d rather take a nap. Obviously, I’m not the target audience.

          Yesterday, I bumped into an acquaintance – the proprietor of a local café/bar – and we agreed that Christmas comes too early. He is making a stand, by refusing to play seasonal music at his venue until the 16th of December, a date he considers appropriate. But, by then, I will already be hiding away in Athens, returning in mid-January, when it’s all over, everyone’s broke and even the plumber should be keen to resume invoicing.