Eat, Drink, Make Merry

So, that was Christmas.  Did anyone see the Queen's broadcast?  As usual, I deliberately missed it.  However, I've heard that this year it was also available in 3-D.  Did she throw stuff at the screen to try and make you duck, like they used to do in those 1950s 3-D movies?  If I thought that sort of stuff was going to happen, I might have bothered watching, (even though I don't have a 3-D TV - who does?).  The thought of her slinging her crown jewels at the audience, or Prince Philip whipping out his favourite shotgun and blasting both barrels at the screen, is quite inspiring.  Perhaps Prince Harry could have re-enacted his naked pool playing.   But as I said, I didn't see the Queen's speech this Christmas.  It was one of several 'traditions' I gave a miss to this year.  Going to the pub on Christmas Eve, for instance.  Well, actually that isn't entirely true.  I  briefly slipped down to my local to see how crowded it was, to find it packed to the rafters with complete strangers.  There wasn't a single face I recognised.  To be fair, they could all have been regulars who simply go in there on different days or at different times than I do.  But the fact that in the brief time I was in the pub I was asked for directions to the toilets half a dozen times indicates that they were all once a year drinkers who only go out on Christmas Eve and that my local was the only pub they could get into.

Needless to say, I left without buying a drink.  Even if I had see anyone I knew in there, it would have been impossible to have any kind of conversation.  The truth was that I was looking for an excuse to stay at home.  This year all I've craved is a bit of peace and solitude after fifteen weeks of various ailments and and increasingly hellish workplace.  So far this Christmas, that's what I've achieved - lounging on my sofa, eating cheese, drinking ten year old single malt, watching old films and generally relaxing.  It's done me a power of good, as Major Bloodnok used to say on The Goon Show.  Taking time off from The Sleaze has also helped.  I feel sufficiently refreshed to think about writing an editorial, which might well have something to do with New Year's resolutions - I actually have one this year.  I'm also about to start watching another batch of Italian exploitation films which I'll duly report on here.  Indeed, watching some of those awful films showing on that shopping/film channel on Freeview I was talking about the other day, has inspired me to consider a new regular feature for next year: 'Forgotten Films'.  Not all of the films I plan to feature are bad (though quite a few will be), many will be movies which simply don't get TV showings these days and have thus faded from the public consciousness.  In the meantime, I'm going back to eating, drinking and making merry.  So should you.