Fucking fuckity fuck!
Christmas is coming. Time to hide.
I committed a dreadful sin against "Dive-ness" this morning by succumbing to a festive mince tartlet in the coffee shop.
Festive!
A mince tartlet with a pastry star on the top and a huge "festive" mark-up.
What a twat I am.
I almost bought a muffin but they reminded me rather too much of the delicious-looking muffins that Rich baked yesterday.
Check 'em out!
Unfortunately they looked so good he appears to have got over-excited and spurted "man-juice" over the tops.
Sorry, Rich, but I'd have to scrape that off before munching into your yummy baked goodness.
Anyhoo; back to Dive's patented festive sweary Scrooginess …
As you know, my Saturday breakfast-time coffee shop (NOT a Starbucks) is one of those in a bookstore and has big comfy chairs. This time of year I usually stop coming into the city for breakfast because they play fucking Christmas muzak at me. They've not started that nonsense yet but they have already filled their shelves with Christmas non-books.
One of the multifarious reasons for hating Christmas (at least the modern mammon-worshipping greed-fest that passes for it these days) is the phrase I can hear my friends and relatives muttering to themselves already: "Dive likes books. Let's get him a book."
NO!
I cannot stress this firmly enough.
Most of these people have a room in their houses containing a big comfy sofa, a fucking great television and no bookshelves.
The only time they go into a bookstore is to buy Dive a book at Christmas. They wouldn't know a good book if I smacked them around the head with it, and I just might have to start doing that. I end up opening Christmas non-books and having to pretend to be delighted.
"Oooh! Thank you! A book on amusing garden gnomes. I'll treasure it!"
No I will not.
If you have to get me anything at Christmas (and I keep telling you not to), get me a book token. That way you are buying me a book I will truly treasure and I will like you a whole lot more for it.
Phil and I walked despondently through the bookshop this morning, gazing in despair at (yes) the book of gnomes, shelves groaning with fucking crappy TV tie-ins, and "celebrity" cockbooks (yes, you read it right … they're called cookbooks but they are utter cock).
I know that publishers can only afford to print the lovely books I like to read because hordes of brainless morons suck up this festering crap at Christmas but it really depresses me. Not the state of the publishing industry (I mean, I'm as greedy as the next man; if somebody is going to pay me good money for crap I'll drop my pants on the spot and give 'em a handful), but the state of the general public.
Dumb, unimaginative, drooling fuckwits.
Here's an example:
Last year, the BBC ran a rather good (if tragically abridged) adaptation of Bleak House. They rushed out a paperback with the "stars" on the cover (TV viewers would never find it in the Penguin Classics section) and just about everybody I know bought a copy.
Did they read it?
Did they fuck!
"I tried, but it was a bit heavy-going".
Fucking Hell … It's LITERATURE you dumb fuckers!
It's NOT like the twat-brained Harry fucking Potter books that people WITH NO CHILDREN read on the tube so they can say "I've read a book". It's PROPER writing!
Oh I give up.
It's a fucking cultural desert out there.
Roll on new year when I can recycle the book of fucking garden gnomes some twat will no doubt buy me for Christmas …
25 comments:
I have a friend who "recycled" a crap book by ripping out the pages and folding them just so, and then she glued them together to make a lovely paper tree. You could try that, with a garden gnome as the topper.
Hee hee.
One of these years you may tempt me to put up a tree or a decoration but not this year, young Robyn.
:) Dive
I was tempted to call you a Scrooge, the I realized that I agree with you on too many points to want to be called one myself. :) Although, remember a tree is NOT necessarily for festivity as it is for the fragrance so I do keep pine in some form in the house. What are Christmas lights for other people serve as a bowlful of night light around my house all year.
Here, have some tea with a bit o' rum and a couple of Rich's muffins. Don't worry, I've cut the top off them too :)
You've really got to pace yourself with your hatred of Christmas, otherwise you'll be having a stroke at this rate. Come on man, it's only November 3rd!
Mind you, I did feel like crying yesterday when I saw the copy of the magazine my other half works for featuring an extensive pull out section on bloody Christmas gifts yesterday.
*sorry about the two "yesterdays". I'm trying to type this while a bloody phone conversation is going on in the background. Bah.
Welcome, Isadora.
I'm afraid I get much rantier, the closer it is to Christmas. Sorry about all the swearing.
I just popped over to Budapest Daily Photo.
Beautiful!
I especially like the bottom of the page! Hee hee.
Betty, I'm much mellower than last year. My Christmas posts back then were nothing but bile-strewn swearfests.
Er … actually, nothing much has changed; I'm still a ranty old curmudgeon.
You can say "yesterday" as many times as you want. When you get to my age it's hit and miss as to whether you'll even remember yesterday.
:) Dive - remembering yesterday is a chore, even what I may be wearing today without looking....but ask me to sing and all the words come back to all the songs I've ever known. Talk about trivia.
Why are you so down on Christmas? My problem is the bloody commercialization, robbing people of the experience and push them into compulsory spending. Most people can't resist. I simply refuse to participate despite being a very joyful giver when I am not expected to.
You like the bottom of the page? I think you and I are the only ones who ever noticed. Liked the idea better than a foto on top.
Thanks for the visit!
Thank you Isadora. I'll be back.
And my posts from last year will tell you more than enough about Mister Grouchy and his Christmas misery.
Hee hee.
Hey, i'm one of those people with no children who have read the Harry Potter books. Not on the tube of course. But then again I've also read D H Lawrence, Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Rushdie.
My brother in law is a christmas book buyer. Every year Mother in law gets a soppy historical romance and i get some of the best biographies of the worlds serial killers and forensic excavations.
Strangely enough I'm not permitted to read the blurb on the back of the book at the christmas dinner table.
When that sentence (what do you want for christmas) come sup just answer, I'd like a book token because there are so many good ones to choose from, (whilst thinking you neanderthal fuckwits)
Hi, Kate.
You're excused because you're highly literate and you do look after kids.
Ah … forensic excavations! Another thing you are excellent at.
wow, sugar and i thought i was death on that holiday which shall remain nameless, but you put me to shame! anyway, where was i going with this? oh yes, we need a party...come december 1st, i staart my annual countdown to...MY BIRTHDAY PARTY! yes, new year's eve, 31 dec...the whole world celebrates and you, my sweet, are my first invited guest to this year's festivities! ;-)
Wow, Savannah! At long last I have a reason to celebrate new year!
I hit forty-nine on the thirteenth of November, by the way.
No party for that one though.
I told you before, you are not allowed to be that old.
It means I am nearly that old as well.
You are 39I and I am 39F and we will hear no more about it.
(or I will get you the gnome book)
Full - stop it, just stop it. I wish I was that old again. Who's counting - let's just party for the hell of it. The dining room table and the lampshade are mine!
Phil: get me the gnome book and you won't have to worry about getting any older.
Isadora: If you've been brave enough to have had a furtive delve into the fœtid pismire of my archives, I think you fully deserve the table and the lampshade.
Dive, I get it too.
"Vic's into music. Let's get her something music related."
There was more to this comment, but I realised it was turning into a rant that I should give a life to as a post some day.
I just stole your line "festive mince tartlet.' I told Bing that she was my festive mince tartlet and she flashed me quite sweetly and responded that I was her "sweet ass gal."
So..thanks for the pick up line. Or in our case, it will be the lay down line later in the evening....
You cupid man, you.
Ahh...Dive's Christmas bitchiness just got Maria laid.
I'm with you on the holiday, Dive. I went to the bookstore tonight to buy another book for my soon to be niece. Unfortunately, I had to pass through the mall to get there--the mall full of Christmas shit. At some point, Graci said, "Uh, are you always like this around holidays?"
I said, "You have no idea. It gets worse the closer we get to the actual day. I almost killed three people last year on Dec 24th."
She laughed, but there was a little fear behind her eyes.
I am so glad I didn't buy you a book for Xmas.
There is, as we speak, a bunch of coconuts heading your way - thought you could rip out some of those bloody Autumn trees and plant something a bit more tropical!!!!
I'm trying to work out to send you a load of sand - bear with me - I'll work it out!!!!
Loath as "Dive" would be to say it; I love you guys.
You made me laugh so much this morning. Good, healthy, long, loud, genuine laughter.
Cheers.
Anyhoo: Vic: I know just what you mean. The kind of things you find inside those parcels set your teeth on edge. It makes you realise that people (a) don't know you at all; and (b) don't give a shit anyway. Christmas is such a hateful time for self-realisation. Bollocks to the lot of 'em.
Maria: I'm genuinely touched. And I also laughed until I almost choked. Enjoy the tasty goodness of your festive mince tartlet! Hee hee hee.
T: The fear behind her eyes just added to my general sense of hilarity. Thank you for that.
Jules: Hee hee. You may jest, but I am planning to rip out most of the trees and (banking on global warming) plant hardy bananas, non-invasive bamboos, yuccas and the like, and am also looking at the type of palms that grow on the south coast here. I can't afford to move to New Britain but I can at least make it look like I'm on holiday when I walk out the back door.
Hahahaha. You've done it again. I must say - I am so tempted to invite you to be a guest on my radio show. However, no swearing allowed! At least not while you're on the air :D
Yeah, like you I like to read - hey, I did 3 degrees on literature so that should tell you something. But people end up giving me books I don't really like. They assume just because I like poetry I must appreciate anything in verse. Wrong!
Oh, by the way, I checked out those muffins. Yummy!
And don't hate me - I'm Filipino so I'm bound to love Christmas BUT NOT Christmas in the UK! I hate Christmas in the UK. I only did that once and swore never again.
TV adverts around this time of the year make me so sick!
Anyway, 'nuff of this rant.
Thanks for visiting Norwich Daily Photo.
joy
Your Love Coach
Hee hee, Joy.
"Dive" by the way, is a kind of semi-fictitious character. I'm not really the sweary curmudgeon … er … most of the time, anyway.
Three degrees, eh? That makes my feeble brain want to run and hide behind the sofa. Well done!
I am totally with you on what Christmas has become over here. I will, no doubt, let "Dive" loose on the subject again, and he will probably get swearier, the closer it gets.
Hey ho.
Could not agree with you more.
Christmas muzak must be stopped.
I already have a lot of crap tha I lug along with me through my life. I, too, wish that if people MUST buy me more crap . . . er . . . presents they would just get a gift certificate to a bookstore, preferably a local one, rather than endeavoring to guess what my taste is. And moreso than that, I wish people inclined to buy me a gift would just make a donation to a charity instead. Where I live there is a great library and that's free for everyone and doesn't clutter my three small rooms.
People are lazy, especially when it comes to literature. I reckon that most people want to read in a fashion that parallels watching TV when they are on their commute. Something relevant to popular culture and doesn't involve intellectual mental gymnastics. Entertinment. It has it's place but it is what it is: candy, not literature.
Oooh goodness, just look at what that single tartlet has unleashed in you, Dive. The Christmas Hate has burst forth from your being and hit us smack in the face.
I'm with you on the books really; i remember when i was a teen and used to give my parents a wishlist of books and they'd say "ooh these are a bit high brow...don't you want that biography, you know.. that actress?" Groan. So i'd get one or two classics and a book on whatsherface from the telly.
I don't own a cookbook, celeb or otherwise, as you'll see from my crumble recipe at Things (Maria asked).
You quite put me off poor old Rich's muffins.
Book tokens are FAB! I'm dying to get to that bookshop one day with you and Full...sigh...
How did you know that was man juice dive. Did Ame tell you????
I told her not to say a word to anyone.
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