Merry Christmas - UK Style

It's Christmas Day and saddo old me, I'm taking the time to blog rather than have a bit of Christmas pudding. Actually, I hate Christmas pudding, thus this blog entry. As a mancypino, I have obviously adopted quite a few British Christmas traditions and have decided not to take up a few others, too! After many years in the UK, I've observed a few unique British Christmas traditions, some of which I will outline below:

1) All those hideous Christmas songs! Not the classic carols like Silent Night or Jingle Bells, but the songs you find in compilation CDs: All I Want for Christmas (Mariah Carey), Wonderful Christmas Time (Paul McCartney), and my personal absolute hate, Cliff Richards' Mistletoe and Wine. From about mid-October they play these songs everywhere you go, it is simply impossible to avoid! Why does the general public have to be subjected to this kind of seasonal torture? Surely this is against human rights??

2) Manic food shopping. I went to the supermarket the other day just to replenish a few things I haven't got at home and my local Sainsbury's was a sight to behold. It was absolutely heaving! I saw one woman with a trolley filled with bread. A whole bloomin' trolley! It was as if the country was going to war, or everyone was feeding the 5,000 for Christmas. Supermarkets are only closed for one, two days, max? Surely there's no need to purchase 50 loaves of bread and 500 pints of milk for two days. It's utterly sinful!

3) Speaking of sinful, that's probably the best way to describe the copious amounts of chocolate given, received and consumed in homes across Britain. In the Philippines, where chocolate is crap, we don't have tins of 'Chocnut' or buckets 'Serg' in Filipino homes all over the country during the yuletide season. Over here, however, people are bombarded with Christmas edition tins of Roses, Celebrations and an assortment of Thorntons selections as early as October!

4) Christmas crackers. I love Christmas crackers! Not the ones you eat with cheese and wine, but the ones that you pull to get a cheap toy, a stupid joke and a silly hat.

5) Those unending sofa and furniture adverts. They are everywhere. If not on billboards on the street, they are all over the telly and on the radio advertising sofas so big, you'll need a mansion to fit one in your living room! There is no escape from it! If I see another advert in the next five minutes of writing this, I am going to throw this laptop at the telly!

6) And this last one is my favourite of all - The Christmas Sales. Nothing delights the senses of millions of women all over the world than that four letter word! I can't wait to get my bargains when the sales start on Boxing Day!

In the meantime, I'm off to watch the Queen's speech. Oh, the delights of a British Christmas!

'Tis The Season To Be Jolly! *NOT*

Right, I’m off for my usual rant. So just bear with me as I get on my soapbox.

Tell me, what is wrong with people these days? Isn’t it supposed to be the season of goodwill to all men? And yet, here we are, only a few days til Christmas, and everyone has a short fuse. Present company included.

I saw two people on the weekend, fighting over a hideously over-priced toy, with their kids in tow. What kind of lesson are they teaching their children? Who wants a stupid remote control dinosaur anyway? There is a reason why they are extinct!

And the queue-jumpers. Don't even get me started with queue jumpers.

I was in Comet the other day and some idiot just jumped in front of the queue pretending not to see me.

I was tired, and hungry. All I wanted was to get a stupid iPod and go home, so as you can imagine, I wasn't exactly in a charitable mood. Unfortunately, the guy picked the wrong day to be a tosser!

So I went up to him, tapped him on the shoulder and said, "I'm not stood here waiting to be abducted by aliens, you know!" He looked at me blankly and I said "Now shift it, mister, before I do sommit nasty." I said this in my most mancypino-Boltoney-Salford Scally accent. And it worked!

He moved away, and went out of the shop, leaving his intended purchases behind.

The cheeky beggar didn't even have the deceny to apologise. Then again, what did I expect from a sodding queue-jumper.

Bond...James Bond.

I didn't know what to expect, really. Casino Royale came out at the cinema a few weeks ago to mixed reviews. Everyone seemed to have an opinion - it was love or hate, and never the twain shall meet. As my taste in film isn't what movie connoisseurs would call 'sophisticated', I had no expectations. I simply wanted to watch a film to de-stress after a particularly busy day at work.

And what a film it was! To be honest, Daniel Craig isn't exactly my cup of tea as Bond. Apart from my terrible crush on the very dishy Pierce Brosnan, I just didn't think that a blonde 007 would work. But somehow, Daniel Craig pulled it well. He was dashing and debonaire, quick-witted and charming and right on the ball, even if he gets some of his 'bluffing' skills horribly wrong.

There were a lot of nail-biting moments and loads of chases and punches thrown here, there and everywhere. It also had some of the most breathtaking sceneries ever filmed.

It may not win an Oscar, but it's certainly worth going to see. If you take the movie just as it is you are going to enjoy this action-packed blockbuster. Just a tip though...

Don't try to be too anal and stop nit-picking - you just might enjoy yourself. You're allowed, you know.