This is sort of my rendition of Fairytale in New York, where
the music is beautiful and jolly but the content is complaints. My rendition
has even gone one step further and dropped the music. My first and main
complaint is with myself, realising that it has been one and a half months
since I have written anything that brings a smirk to my face and hopefully a
smirk to other people’s faces. Occasionally. This was the year I planned to
write a post once per week, and I did for a while, but then I began watching
Jesse Pinkman work a bit harder on meth production and working a bit harder on
PhD production myself. You can always find motivation in pop culture.
Other than that though, I have been finding myself grumpier
and grumpier this Christmas season which does not tend to be the case. Usually
the lights and decorations lift my mood right up and I greet London’s freezing
temperatures like an old friend, one that brings gifts of coughs and mucus and
sometimes light fever. But this year I find myself navigating towards those
that curse the cold and rue the day they will have to go to Winter Wonderland
with its overload of tourists. Is it that I haven’t had much mulled wine? Is it
that my environmental consciousness is flagging up those cute lights as
potential threat to my Greta Thunberg-less newsfeed? Is it that I forgot to go
on a diet prior to the holidays as a pre-emptive measure and now I am way above
my safety weight? Is it that I visited Bond Street on a Saturday afternoon and
it took me two hours to return home on a crowded bus? Let’s examine them one by
one and see which of these reasons is to blame.
First of all, mulled wine is life. It is everything that’s
good. Tea is good because it’s warm. Wine is good because it’s alcohol. Mulled
wine is the best! I would even argue it is therefore good both for the throat
and for the soul. It is widely available and appeals to almost everyone because
of all that sugar. But this year I haven’t come across it as much as I would
like. It feels like every time I start my evening aiming to drink a cup of £6
mulled wine I end up drinking shitty white wine instead. It’s a curious thing.
But my stingy side has a good argument; mulled wine is essentially the
shittiest red wine combined with a bunch of herbs and sugar and mulled wine
cups are tiny. Whereas shitty white wine is cheaper and frankly, a lot less
fattening. A lot less tasty too, but anyway. But apart from said stinginess, I
think it took them longer to get mulled wine out on the streets. I feel like the
past couple of years you could get from middle of November onwards. I am aware
that I am talking about mulled wine as if it is meth, but I have been watching
a lot of Breaking Bad. This is the moment I will admit that I probably misled a
lot of people with this post. Because I genuinely like that in London,
Christmas lasts for two months almost. That is not my beef with Christmas. I do
mind that the food and drink were delayed this year. If I have to listen to
‘Baby, it’s cold outside’ five times a day I deserve some mulled wine and mince
pies to go with it.
Secondly, as much as the term environmental consciousness is
something of a joke when spoken by a non-vegan, conventional cotton bud user,
we have enough triggers to take a look around and realise that Christmas decorations
with LED screens are probably not necessary. I read an article the other day
that talked about how the now traditional ugly Christmas sweaters are bad for
plastic consumption. While my initial reaction was ‘but they’re so cute’, I
quickly realised that, yes, they are most likely bought from Primark and
possibly thrown away or lost because who cares about a five pound sweater you
will not wear for another year? The lack of environmental awareness is
everywhere! The gift wrap, the unnecessary plastic on gift sets, the millions
of decorations! Christmas carols will surely release more CO2 than
cow shit! It’s the LED screens that really got me though, especially
considering they look like ugly versions of WALL-E.
Thirdly, the dieting issue is real. Last year, I was the
spokesperson for pre-Christmas fitness dedication. I signed up to a gym, went
regularly and ate healthy. I then returned to Greece for the holidays and let
all hell break loose. This year I found out KFC is the best taste a chicken can
have and that Uber eats almost always has a voucher for free delivery. Needless
to say that these news along with my eternal love for Domino’s have made
dieting a long-lost memory. I have been supposedly intermittently fasting for
more than a month now and I have had more exceptive than included meals since. And
you know what? Exceptions always taste much better.
My last and most probable cause for disliking this time of
year is the amount of people that has quadrupled within a week. End of
November, things were calm and festive, but the moment we entered December this
world got mad. I am assuming it is the Christmas shopping; maybe people do not
know of Amazon Prime yet or still prefer going to stores to buy things for
other people. I don’t get it, but I do accept it. Maybe some of them appreciate
the LED screen decorations I previously bad-mouthed. Regardless, their joy
brings me no pleasure. My first attempt to go home from the admittedly central
Bond Street was the tube; it wasn’t just the train that was packed, nor the
platform. The whole station looked immobilised! I quickly decided that while I
may not suffer from asthma, I would be risking my lungs were I to board that
train. My second attempt was the bus. Now, that was a thought-out plan as, to
the best of my then knowledge, only us true Londoners appreciate the bus above
and beyond its underground alternative. Thought-out it may have been if it was
not 2019. I was betrayed by my very best friend; the internet. Tourists were
fully aware that they could get the bus to Hyde Park or back to their hotel, rather
than endure the tube sweat that I also rejected. What they didn’t know was that
by joining us bus-lovers they simply transferred that hectic tube atmosphere to
the slower-moving bus. It took me about half an hour to actually get on a bus
and about forty minutes of complete and utter stillness I got off the bus a couple
of meters down the road and began walking. The horror. I will always remember
that exasperation, the heat, the smell of sweat, the drunk lady having a full-blown
conversation with the bus driver in ALL CAPS, but you know, the verbal version.
Walking home for another forty odd minutes was the best decision I have made in
a while. The cold suddenly felt like a breeze, the weed smelled like perfume. I
even began appreciating those awful decorations.
After close examination, I have concluded that I am to blame.
Mulled wine is readily available, environmental consciousness has many ways to
be dealt with that I refuse to undertake (cheese is life), I could just take my
diet more seriously (but again, cheese is life) and I could have just avoided
central London during the holidays at all costs! Nonetheless, this is my way of
spreading love to similarly minded curmudgeons by spreading hate about the
holidays. It is a new, untested technique but I am confident it will work.
