The Pre-Christmas Sales

Spooky moment:

I fell asleep reading on the sofa and just woke up to Robyn's voice …
It took several long moments of bizarre confusion before I realised it was Radio 3 playing the Opera Quiz from the NY MET and the quizmaster sounds just like her.

Hey, Robyn, you're not moonlighting, are you?

I must admit to a Crane Brothers moment of joy realising I had woken up to an opera quiz.

There was a time a few years back when my brother and I were convinced we were Frasier and Niles Crane.
We're pretentious, we're neurotic, we're apalling snobs, we meet for coffee in bookshop coffeebars and wipe our seats before sitting down, I'm an opera buff with a house full of books and modern art and I'm a disaster with women (though perhaps those two facts are linked) … The list goes on …

That all came back to me just then when I woke up. If you can picture Frasier in the same situation, leaping to his feet and exclaiming "An Opera quiz! How divine!" Well I'm ashamed to say that was me. Try as I might to be Homer Simpson, I end up a Crane …
Oh, well.

So, today was the "pre-Christmas sales" rush in Norwich. That most insane day of the year when all the retailers panic that (a) we are not going to spend enough at Christmas; and (b) their competitors might start their January sales a few hours earlier and get the jump on them.
Strange and stupid behaviour.
A few years back the January sales started in January.
Then they started moving them earlier until they started on Boxing Day and turned a family relaxation and leftovers-munching day into a frenzied dash around the shops.
Now they start before Christmas and the city is full of cheapskates who put off their present buying in the knowledge that the stores will cave in and start the sales early, and demented couples buying kitchens and sofas two days before Christmas in case they miss a bargain in January …

I love this day. It's a great day for sitting back in the window of a coffee bar and watching the carnage. It's also a good day to have my own lock-up parking space at the station. I have to get in early though, before the gridlock.
Then it's just kick back and people watch. Screaming arguments developing between loving couples; parents having nervous breakdowns and trying not to kill their children Oh, it brings joy to a curmudgeon's heart.

So, if you were out there today in the scrum, fighting for a piece of tat that's been marked up forty percent so they can mark it down thirty and make you think you got a bargain; chill out! Get a fucking life, you suckers. You're going into Christmas with terminal blood pressure and that vein in your forehead is pulsing already. And you've got the in-laws and cooking the Christmas dinner yet to come. And a house full of screaming, greedy brats …

These two days before Christmas, a Grinch's life is indeed a happy one. Hee hee …
Happy Christmas.