Seasonal Signals

Christmas really must be just around the corner - it's the BBC Sports Personality of the Year on Sunday.  For as long as I can remember, it's been a big TV experience for me.  Not that I ever watch it, you understand.  No, it just marks the point in December when Christmas is close enough to put up decorations.  It goes back to my childhood, when the Sunday of the Sports Personality of the Year would be when my father got the tree and decorations down from the loft and we put them up.  Even during the many years when I didn't bother with seasonal decorations in my own house, that Sunday would always stir the old memories.  Nowadays, my minimalist decorations don't go up before the Sports Personality weekend. 

The other big TV signifier of Christmas being imminent when I was a kid was the appearance of the BBC's seasonal idents between programmes.  Traditionally, they didn't appear until Christmas week itself and we'd look forward to seeing what bizarre variation on the regular idents BBC1 would come up with every year.  To be honest, I don't think that the rotating Christmas pudding which replaced the then regular rotating globe of the world back in the early seventies has ever been surpassed.  Nowadays the Christmas idents seem to appear earlier and earlier in December - this year they've already been running for days - and are less and less imaginative.  This year's red background and Christmas card style robins and the like are probably the worst yet.  Still, at least the BBC still makes the effort.  I can't remember the last time ITV made any effort to produce decent seasonal idents.