Sunday 22 November 2015

I demand 11 more nights


Just another Saturday night at The Bell Inn, Bath. I got bored and was home by 6.30.

The final cannon-blast at the end of the two-minute silence marked the beginning of Christmas, and the festive (LED) lights outside our compact but adorable city apartment have been on ever since, flooding my bijou little bedroom with a very good imitation of cold dawn - for the whole night.

Before I tore myself away from The Bell last night, I was talking to an ex-local who now lives on Dartmoor. Halfway through the conversation, he apologised for donning a pair of very dark sunglasses. It was night time, and we were bathed in the soft, warm glow of the pub's (LED) lights.

He explained that his eyes cannot handle the frequency of Light Emitting Diodes - of the sort which I fitted not only all over the pub, but recently all over our compact but adorable city apartment. I asked him why not.

He said that there had recently been some sort of research which claimed that exposure to LED light damaged people's retinas, and he was particularly sensitive to this newly discovered phenomena.

Damn. I have been waiting for bloody years until they had just about sorted out a form of LED light which is fit for domestic use, and now someone has come up with this scary theory. I am going to have to do some research on it now. Have you heard of this?

Anyway, back to Christmas in November. I am thinking of starting a campaign to reinstate 12th Night.

There are already dozens of half-hearted campaigns which vainly attempt to halt of the steady retrogression of acceptable dates to begin celebrating Yule Tide, and these are mainly aimed at the obvious commercial interests of all those high street shops which would like to see the season begin at the very end of Summer.

The 12th Night - and the run-up to it - after Christmas Day was considered more important to the Elizabethans than the day itself, and this had the added benefit of finding something to celebrate in the cold, short, Winter days when the balloon has been deflated and all we have to look forward to is distant Spring. I don't think we have ever quite recovered from Oliver Cromwell's 8-year blanket-ban on Christmas, and Jeremy Corbyn is starting to look as though he might bring the ban back into force.

Boxing Day here is marked by the Winter Sales, when some desperate people actually sleep out on the streets on Christmas night, just so they can get £50 knocked-off a washing machine, or whatever.

Could not the two be linked in some way by reinstating 12th Night as the highlight of the Winter festivals?

19 comments:

  1. 12th Night is when we un-decorate the house, then go out wassailing in the evening. An important date with the Magnons.

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    1. I stay at home wassailing - but then I do every night.

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  2. I like the picture you have chosen for this blog post header. I like her body shape. Reminds me of me, except my hairstyle is different.

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    1. I can't take my eyes off her, dirty old man that I am. I think that I may have been born about 50 years too late in this case, though. I'll either have to take your word about your body shape, or you could post up photos.

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    2. Strangely I cannot take my eyes off her either. You will have to take my word for what I said, I won't be posting any photos.

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    3. I agree...a very nice body. As for being a dirty old man, Tom...I'm reminded of a line by Redd Foxx...some told him he was a dirty old man, and he said, "Yes. And I'll be one until I'm a dead old man." Ha! That's the spirit!

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    4. I used to be a dirty young man, when dirt actually meant something.

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    5. If only I was two years younger!

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  3. I'm just going to sit here and gaze at the magnificent body I always wanted...

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  4. That's a cracking photo......makes me love my belly, arse and tits 'cos I'm not stick thin and this pic shows that you don't need to be.

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    1. Yes, she is plump by today's standards. Actually, one does need to be thin to be thought attractive these days.

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    2. Not by me - or most other elderly men. If you grew another 20 inches, you would look like that, Shawn.

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  5. Here in the States, we try to hold out until the day after Thanksgiving to begin thinking about Christmas. I say try, because every year we baby boomers annoyingly recall that in our youth Thanksgiving weekend was when the Christmas lights were put up and the radio started playing Christmas music. Now, of course, as soon as the Halloween candy gets marked down 50%, the green and red foil wrapped chocolates and peppermint candy canes appear.

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