FESTIVE FEVER..

Of all the countless images of the `festive season,` I think this one is the most telling.  In the background, you can just make out a Christmas tree as a token Yuletide symbol, which is just as well, as there`s nothing else at all `festive` about the scene.   Of course, it shows the mayhem when the Boxing Day sales started yesterday morning and there are a number of things that are troubling about this image.

The first (and I expect I`ll immediately be labelled an `ist`) is the almost total predominance of non-white, possibly non-British customers.   Now this might be for a variety of reasons, including the genuinely international attraction of the big London stores, but I suspect it may be more an accurate vision of modern day London and the other big conurbations of this sceptred isle.   Whatever, it looks as if the locals have no chance.  Ah, England, my England.  Wherefore art thou?

Then there is the manic clamour for `stuff.`   I`ve no idea what goods were on offer in this sale but again I have my suspicions that they were probably things that, if pressed, the manic clamourers really could do without, so it`s probably all about mindless acquisitiveness for its own sake.

But, of course, this is the festive season, the season of goodwill to all men and it`s images like this one that confirm, to me at least, that the world seems to losing all sense of what`s important, along with any real sense of priority and reason.   It doesn`t matter what it is, I`ve got to have it and I will queue up all night and fight the good fight so I can get it.  And too bad if anyone gets in my way.

Such is the rampant commercialism these days that Christmas stuff starts appearing in the shops around the end of September and on and on it goes with just a pause on Christmas Day until the jamboree starts up again the day after.  So we might as well stop kidding ourselves, for Christmas, at last, shows us the true meaning of Santa`s birthday.....and we are all the poorer for it.   Anyway, can`t stop - I`m off to buy my Easter eggs.