Twas the season of spending all your wonga

Well that’s it for another year,,,thankfully and we can all get back to what passes for   normal although the whole country has come to a stand for the week until after New Years Eve has passed. Another awful American ‘tradition’,  the holidays taken between Christmas and New Year. Of course “ when oi were a boy”  only Christmas Day and Boxing Day were days off and News Years Day was a normal working day. It was first made a national Bank Holiday in 1974.

 I say the country has come to a stand, that is not quite correct as most shops were open on Boxing day, indeed some opened as early as 5 am for something known as ‘the sales’ quite what that means I am not sure as stores had been heavily discounting for weeks in the run up to Christmas in a hopeful attempt to part hard pressed shoppers from their cash. I must confess that I watched some TV adverts rather incredously as potential must have presents were being advertised at ‘only £299’ or some other stupid amount that equates to more than a weeks income for most folks in Thanet. The pressure on parents at this time of year is immense to buy their offspring the latest Xtube PS 490 gizmo as the insinuation given in some of the adverts is that all their mates will have it and they will be the odd one out. Long gone are the days when kids were happy with a hoop and a tangerine and if they were lucky a wooden toy that gave you splinters or some lead soldiers that allegedly gave us all lead poisoning!

People say that I am wrong or out of date for harking back to the ‘good old days’ but life was definitely better then, we didn’t have the constant commercial pressures we have now to acquire the latest, biggest, fastest most expensive gadget or game, people were happier with their lot and didn’t aspire to own possessions they could not afford or quite frequently didn’t need.

Ironically as I write this Star Trek is on the telly and I am prompted to think that if my Grandad was to be suddenly transported into this century it would be much the same as me being transported into the 24^th century although in the 24^th century the overwhelming desire for possessions has been eliminated. I can imagine the wonder he would feel at being able to communicate with anywhere in the world at the push of a button, send emails instead of letters and telephones smaller than the size of a packet of cigarettes that fit in your pocket. Imagine the feeling that he would have at being able to do your weekly shop from your front room, be able to buy anything at the click of a mouse button, of course he would think a mouse is something small and furry.

So there you have it, hundreds of pounds wasted on food that will never get eaten, even more hundreds of pounds spent on the latest electronic toy that will be out of date come your childs birthday, all for a couple of days relaxing without the worry of will you still have a job to go to on January 3^rd, will I get through the winter without catching some exotic flu, will my car pass its MOT, will I break down in the bad weather, will the central heating pack up at the first sign of snow, will I be able to afford the January bills, will Charlton Athletic actually get promoted this year?

Happy New Year to you all.